


The Broken Boy

by Behindthealias



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 95,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4617447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Behindthealias/pseuds/Behindthealias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Harry Potter is endowed with the power to recall the dead and manipulate the strange currents of magic. The spirits take a liking to him and he embarks on a quest to protect himself and to find the love that he had been deprived of for too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Privet Drive was normally a quiet neighborhood, average in every way. Albus surveyed the slick asphalt recently dampened by rain. The sky seemed to weep for what had come to pass earlier that evening. The Potters were dead and a child had been orphaned. With a long sigh, the wizened old man moved after what seemed like a lifetime. He did not like that he had to leave the Potter boy here. He was unscrupulous at the best of times, but even he had a better conscience than to leave one of magical blood with these...mongrels. Not that he had anything against all muggles. In fact, he liked them for their ignorance and their stupidity, so pliant in the hands of a capable manipulator. These, however, were the worst humanity had to offer. Absently, he drew the deluminator from his robes and the lights along Privet Drive were swallowed whole, one by one.

Alone in the dark, Albus felt relief as cool darkness enveloped him in a protective embrace. Number 4 Privet Drive, an average whitewashed house belonging to an average, whitewashed family. Albus sneered. Beside him, a small black cat transformed smoothly into an older woman with a pointed hat. The woman, his colleague, ranted at him in a lilting Irish accent. In all honesty, Minerva was right to be concerned. These were "the worst sort of muggles". Albus sighed again and gave her weak assurances as they waited for the arrival of Hagrid the half-giant and the Potter boy. A strange puttering sound soon caught their attention and the flying motorbike made its appearance, a streak of black across the full moon. Young Harry would never remember the bumpy ride or the harsh, biting winds that swept past him as he slept. Nor would he ever remember the old man with the half moon spectacles staring down calculatingly at him as he was left on the doorstep of the Dursley residence.

Albus was the last to leave the scene. He'd stopped, wordlessly weaving compulsion charms and powerful spells around the sleeping baby. Yes, the muggles would take him. After placing a letter to accompany the Potter boy, he apparated away with a small pop. At his departure, however, small wisps of light and an ethereal mist gathered around the sleeping bundle. Old and terribly powerful spirits, they were, and they were angry. With gentle tendrils and soft sighs, the spirits searched through the cloud of malignant magic weaved tightly around the boy. Hissing with anger and frustration, the congregation of spirits decided it was necessary to act. Being in the astral plane, they could do little to remove the spells. Instead, they bestowed upon him a gift of knowledge so that he might liberate himself when the time came.

Petunia Dursley had answered the door with a scream that cold morning in November. She'd picked up Harry as she would a dirty cat and walked him into the house at arm's length with his legs dangling under him and his head lolling about in bewilderment at the sudden movement. Piercing green eyes stared back at her and somehow, she knew her sister was dead. The Dursleys wondered what to do with the unwanted child who would, undoubtedly, grow up to be as freakish as Lily and James had been. Harry was kept in the same room as his cousin Dudley for the first few years of his life when he had needed frequent care. As soon as he could hold a frying pan and reach the stove, he was made to make the family's meals and clean the house. Vernon Dursley had also begun his beatings, which escalated when Harry refused to cry and his bones refused to remain broken. When his eyesight had proven bad enough to catch the attention of the nurse who worked at his primary school, the Dursleys had grudgingly allowed the school to buy him a pair of glasses.

Harry was a quiet boy and a beautiful child. Outside of his relatives' home, he was quite loved by his teachers and his neighbors. When asked about the scar on his forehead, the Dursleys had always been quick to explain that Harry's parents had been killed in a car crash with him in the car and that they were drunks. Everyone looked at young Harry with different eyes, wondering if his parents' alcoholism had damaged his brain. Little did they know, the boy had understood every word that had crossed their lips and silently wondered if the information was true. When Harry was alone, he would stare up at the ceiling of the boot cupboard he called home and wonder. Why did his uncle hit him so? Why was Dudley so deserving of better things and better treatment? Closing his eyes, Harry found ways to escape his thoughts and the pain that was result of the day's beatings. He reached a place in his mindscape that seemed to float away from his physical body. Opening his eyes again, he would find himself in a strange, translucent copy of the Dursley house. He made friends with the inhabitants of this realm. The "floaters" he called them.

The Floaters had taught him many things over the years. They taught him to read as a toddler. They taught him meaning behind most words by transplanting images of things from their past lives into his mind. Although he had been denied access to the outdoors as a child, he knew what a flower was and what the sun felt like on his skin. Although he had never seen a book, he knew his letters and his vocabulary was comparable to that of an adult. They also taught Harry how to be careful. Never was he to reveal to anyone how much he knew of how much he could understand. He was never to speak and never to look into his relatives' eyes. Harry followed the Floaters' doctrine religiously and avoided as much trouble as he could. After his first six years of life, the Floaters informed him of the existence of magic, a word Vernon had forbidden in his household. Harry had discovered it by accident. One evening, when he had been beaten to the point that he could no longer stand, he reached out to an immense well of power that had always been a bit out of his reach, commanding it to mend his legs. Miraculously, he found himself upright and completely healed, much to the horror of Vernon, who promptly locked him in the cupboard again and knocked back a few extra shots of vodka to convince himself it never happened.

This new ability excited Harry and it amused the Floaters immensely to see him levitate furniture and animate his toys. Harry, you must be wary, they had told him, Never let them see for they fear it. He understood perfectly well what that meant. Fear was the driving force behind his relatives' cruelty, he could feel it, see it in their eyes. When he was ten, Harry had come across a dead owl lying in the grass behind the Dursley house. He had been sent to clear away the corpse. Curious, he inspected the bird, finding no indication of any physical injury. Poison had apparently been the cause. Look into the plane, the Floaters provided, its soul is still anchored to the physical plane. Slipping into the astral plane, Harry saw it. The owls essence was still partially anchored to its still warm body. Reaching out with his own soul, he coaxed it back into the body, magically forcing the poison out of it and repairing any major damage. At once, the owl stood and stared at the curious child before flying away. Harry was elated at the discovery. A horrified gasp behind him quickly turned his elation into fear. Whipping his head around, he was met with a pudgy fist slamming into his nose. Vernons angry red face came into his view as he lay reeling on the ground, blood trickling from his nose. "Your freakishness is not welcome in this house, boy!" he hissed.

Harry's worst beating to date took place that day. Pain even he could not bear elicited cries of agony from his lips as his back was lashed by Vernon's metal belt buckle and his fingers roughly broken. The Floaters drew his mind away from his body and held him tight until the punishment was over. Slowly, they lowered him back into the physical plane and encouraged him to heal himself. The strange sensation of muscles reknitting themselves and bones rejoining caused Harry to writhe and cringe on the grass where the dead owl had lain before him. Once it was done, he lay spent and limp, his glasses knocked away and his shirt torn to shreds. The Floaters cooed comfortingly to him and stroked his pains away as he cried bitterly to himself. When Harry turned nine, he asked the Floaters of their identities. By then, he knew that his parents were dead and that he was the only one able to use magic.

"Who are you, exactly?" He asked.

"We are what you would call spirits. We exist in the astral plane. We are many, but we are one. You have heard of this." They responded.

"Oh." Harry responded, and fell quiet again.

"We sense that you have more questions, young one," the spirits pressed.

"Why is it that only I can see you? Why can I make dead things come back? Why can't everyone else see you? Why can I do all these weird things?" The questions came out like gunfire.

"Peace, young one. You are a gifted child. Your abilities are not to be feared. Despite what your uncle may say, you are not a freak. There are many more like you. You have yet to meet them. That is all." The spirits began to recede before Harry stopped them.

"If there are more like me, why hasn't anyone come to claim me? I don't belong here."

"Hush, all will be revealed in time."

"No! I can't keep living like this. I need some assurance that there is more out there than this Hell. Surely, you must understand." Harry was begging now, pleading. The spirit seemed to heave a sigh and seemed almost sad.

"You will not like what we have to say." Seeing the determined glint in the boy's sunken eyes, the spirits continued.

"You are a wizard, Harry, one of thousands who live hidden from the non-magical folk you would call muggles. You wield the power of magic that every soul is inherently capable of. Wizards are born with bodies that have cores capable of conducting this energy in order to bring this energy into this plane as a physical manifestation."

Harry's jaw worked left and right as he sorted through the information he had been given. "Can they-the other wizards-see you as well?" He asked suddenly.

"No." Came the brief reply.

"Why? Please, I need to know." The spirits heaved another sad, sad sigh and responded.

"The night you were orphaned, a very powerful wizard attempted to kill you, but by some chance, you were spared. A very old wizard took you from the house you were born in and placed you here. As to why, we do not know. That night, your soul was wrenched out of your body and forcefully sent back in. Part of you remained in the astral plane as if your mortal vessel did not have room to contain it. We witnessed it. It was...unusual. You are neither here nor there. It is...difficult to explain. You were not joined with us as other lost souls are. We believe this is why you have such access to the astral plane."

"Wait," Harry interrupted the spirits' ramblings, "I died?"

"Patience. Your mortal vessel did perish, but briefly. It was only a split second, but something pulled you back. It was strange, as we have said. No such occurrence has taken place before. Your gift of control over the dead was our doing. It is what is called necromancy in your tongue. Your natural talent with it, however, is within your blood. It is another anomaly we do not yet know the cause of." The spirits slipped into more ramblings.

Harry was silent for a while, musing over these new discoveries. "Spirit, I need power," he said at last. The spirits were grave and silent at once.

"Why?" It was a weighted question.

"To defend myself." Harry was bashful and wondered if he should have said anything. The spirits, however, seemed to think this a suitable answer. As long as the boy did not seek the power for lesser pursuits as revenge or conquest, the answer was acceptable.

"Then we shall provide it," they replied. Suddenly, the spirits grew bright and an intense light consumed Harry's field of vision, blinding him. He gave a startled cry and fell writhing on the floor, clutching his eyes. His uncle's irate pounding woke him minutes later. Still unable to open his eyes, Harry merely begged forgiveness and hoped that it would be enough to appease him. Harry released the breath he'd been holding as he heard his uncle retreat back up the stairs and a door slam shut.

"We apologize," said the spirits after a time, "It was not our intention to harm. It has been many years since the Sight was granted to one still living. We misjudged."

Harry opened his eyes experimentally and found that everything had changed. His vision had been corrected and the colors and shapes were crisp and vibrant. What's more, he could see a certain aura surrounding everything, running like small rivers into a translucent current.

"What you see is the currents of magic that tie all things together. Everything is connected. All is one," the spirits explained.

"What was that? What did you do?" Harry asked, still looking around in wonder.

"What you saw was our true form. We would not dare reveal ourselves to any of the living under normal circumstances, but you are an exception. You have already entered the realm of the dead once and we deemed it safe for you to look upon us. By allowing you to see us, you have been allowed to see all other things as we see."

"So I can see magic now?"

"Yes."

"This can protect me?"

"In time, you will learn to use it. Now rest, child. you have much to learn in the coming years."

The next morning, the spirits woke him with their first lessons. As he readied the Dursleys' breakfast and mowed their lawn, the spirits whispered to him magical theory-how the magic flowed and how it could be manipulated, like yarn or clay. In the evening, Harry's dreams consisted of more lessons. After some time, he began to notice knots in his own magic pool. When he questioned the spirits about them, they replied with an unprecedented amount of malice.  
"The old one who left you here put them there. We were most displeased, but could not do anything to prevent it. We had forgotten. It is time you removed them."

"What are they?"

"They are...blocks," the spirits replied, almost unwilling to explain any more, "They limit your intellectual and physical growth. This one," they gestured to the larger knot in Harry's magical pool, "blocks your magical abilities. This one, located in your eyes, incenses any who look into your eyes."

Harry floundered, looking for the right words. "Why would anyone-? Why me? What did that man have to gain by-? I need to sit down." He cradled his head in his hands.

"Calm, young one. It is alright. This is why we stay with you. We can help you. Many grave crimes have been committed against you. Come, we must undo these...knots."

They worked through the night to right the strands of Harry's magical pool. Where most would have a perfectly circular magical pool, Harry's was jagged, as if many slices had been cut out of a pie. The spirits assured him that they would grow back as torn flesh regrows and makes itself whole again. The damage had been dealt with early. He would grow up to have perfectly normal abilities.

"A word of warning," the spirits cautioned, "The old one will expect his blocks to still be in place when you see him. Do not do anything that catches his attention when it comes time for you to meet him again, or you will be in danger. Know this. In two years' time, you will be taken from here and placed in a school where you will hone your skills. You will be in great danger. Nothing is as it seems."

With that knowledge, Harry drifted into an uneasy sleep, wary of what was to come.


	2. The Broken Boy Ch. 2

As the spirits had promised, Harry's first Hogwarts letters arrived in August two years later just a week before his eleventh birthday. It had been a messy affair. Vernon had somehow gotten the idea that barricading the house would keep the owls at bay and the letters away. Harry wished he could have enlisted the help of his magic to retrieve the letter, but he could not risk it, lest giving away his secrets. Vernon had them moved to a small island somewhere. Honestly, Harry was shocked he cared so much. If it were any other person, Harry would have been thrown to the streets, blood be damned. While Vernon's beatings had lessened since the floaters had helped him remove the curses, Vernon's prejudices against magic kept their relationship strained and full of malice. Though he was curious as to why Vernon would go so far as to uproot his family to protect a nephew he considered an abomination, Harry chalked it up to his stubbornness and stupidity and called it a day. He was tired and just wanted a break. It was his birthday, after all.

Harry stared down at the birthday cake he drew himself in the soot and sighed. It was a silly notion, but he couldn't help but believe that he needed some affirmation of his age, proof that he'd managed to stay alive this long. As a toddler, he'd worked up the courage of asking his aunt when his birthday was. She'd looked down at him at first with a sneer, but seemed to see something in his eyes that softened her expression minutely. Quietly, she muttered, "31st of July, 1980". That was the most civil conversation Harry had ever had with his aunt. Actually, it was the only conversation he ever had with Petunia. She had always been a sort of distant person, even to her family. Coddling of Dudley aside, she was always very wooden and quiet. Hardly more than two sentences ever passed between her and Vernon a day.

A loud banging interrupted Harry's musings. The half-giant, Hagrid, was nice. He liked him more when Dudley sprouted a tail.

"Dun worry, your cousin should be back to normal in a few...er...days. I think. I never graduated school, y'know. Tha's why it's so important that you go to 'ogwarts," he said as he stowed his pink umbrella.

"Oh I'm sure he'll manage. I rather think that it's an improvement of his looks, rounds out his character." Hagrid gave a raucous belly-laugh and beckoned Harry to the side-car of his motor-bike. The ride was peaceful, familiar even, and soon had him sound asleep. When he woke, Harry found that he'd been moved to an old-fashioned, but cozy bed that smelled of soap. Hagrid was pulling his coat on, the source of the rustling that woke Harry in the first place. They headed down the stairs and ran into a room full of people who stopped in their activities to stare at him, eyes full of a strange emotion that Harry couldn't place. After the second woman gave him a trembling handshake, he recognized it as awe.

All of these people. They're magical, aren't they. Harry asked the floaters. He could see the threads of magic sprouting from everyone in the room. Yes, all of these people are witches and wizards. This is a very well-used passage into the magical world.

Harry's conversation was interrupted by a man who Hagrid introduced as a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"N-not that you n-need it, e-eh, P-potter?" Professor Quirrel offered his hand for Harry to shake and snatched it away quickly, as if it stung. Harry could only offer a shy grin and felt decidedly uneasy about the man.

Diagon Alley was a wonderful place, so full of color and life. His first glimpse of the magical world through his own eyes left him with giddy pleasure. Hagrid took him to Gringotts first, idly commenting that they weren't the nicest of creatures. Harry was too focused on the fact that goblins existed. They stepped into the immaculate bank and walked up to a counter.

"Mr. Potter would like to make a withdrawal," Hagrid barked to seemingly nobody. A wrinkly head suddenly appeared over a ledger on the counter and a high pitched voice asked, "And does Mr. Potter have his key?" Hagrid searched around his pockets, worrying Harry, until he found the tiny golden key. Harry sighed inwardly, wondering at how this shining example of a role-model came to be his caretaker. Anyhow, he'd made it this far, he supposed he liked Hagrid enough to overlook occasional absentmindedness. Hagrid made a mysterious stop at another vault and retrieved a package that had suspicious magical threads tied to it in circular patterns that he'd never seen before. Magical energy usually sprouted from its sources and ended somewhere, but these made endless loops. He decided to keep his mouth shut. Harry entered his vault with the help of a goblin called Griphook and observed with wide eyes the vault his parents left him, filled to the brim with gold coins.

"This is, of course, a small portion of the full Potter-Evans estate, which will be given to you when you are of age," the goblin said in a clipped, business-like manner.

"Really? Only a part of it? I don't think I'll ever need this much gold in all my life."

Griphook smirked at him and tossed him a pouch. "Put as much in there as you think you need, Mr. Potter. It's magically enlarged on the inside, so it will hold quite a bit." After thinking on it, Harry piled in coins until he could at least see the gold upon opening that pouch and snapped it shut, thinking it was quite enough. Griphook raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Potter, you're a thrifty man."

Harry furrowed his brow. "Isn't it enough? It's more money than I've ever touched."

"Really, and how much have you ever touched?"

"Four pounds for groceries when my aunt was too busy to do the shopping. Are you sure this isn't too much? It just doesn't feel right taking all this." Harry shrugged. He'd never paid too much attention to money. Griphook tutted and looked at the boy in tattered clothing who would be among the richest wizards in existence. "Mr. Potter, you must understand that your parents were very wealthy. It is not my place to comment on your personal life, but you do deserve to live to your means." As they exited, Griphook nudged Hagrid and said, "See that Mr. Potter gets some new clothes at least," he looked Harry over again from the corner of his eye, "and perhaps a solid meal...or two."

Harry and Hagrid made their way to Madam Malkin's and Hagrid was made to stay outside by a matronly lady who beckoned Harry in, with the simple greeting, "Hello, darling. Hogwarts? First year? Brilliant. Wait here, please," before she bustled off to her other customers while a magical measuring tape wrapped itself around Harry's torso as he sat in his chair. He pulled out his pouch to pick out a few coins for when he had to pay and the jingling caught someone's attention.

"You're a first year at Hogwarts too? I'm so excited to get my uniform, but I only wish the school would let me replace the fabric with something finer. I hate wool," a pale-faced boy with slicked back blond hair said as if they'd been friends forever.

"Yeah...I guess it could be uncomfortable, wool, that is," Harry replied.

The pale boy stared at him and smiled. "Glad you agree! I want to sneak a broom in with me. First years aren't allowed to fly, pfft, but I've been flying since before I could walk. I think I'd know if it was too dangerous for me."

Not sure what this strange boy meant by brooms or flying, Harry merely chuckled with him and nodded politely.

"What house do you expect to be placed in? I'm thinking I'll be Slytherin since everyone in my family's been there. I do hope I don't get Hufflepuff. I think I'd perish. Yes, Hogwarts is full of the lesser sort of lower birth, like that one over there," the boy continued, gesturing over to Hagrid, "But I suppose educating them would make their presence in the community slightly tolerable. Can't be running around without control over their magic. It'd be chaos."

Harry was confused and somewhat affronted. He liked Hagrid. "I don't think they're lesser, merely dealt the wrong cards in life. I mean he," gesturing at Hagrid, "doesn't really have a choice as to who his parents turned out to be. Magic's magic, right?"

"You're right, I suppose. Everyone who can at least hold a wand is leagues better than any muggle," the boy shuddered, "I'm Draco, by the way, pleasure meeting you." Before Harry could reply, Draco was called off to be fitted for his robe. Harry shrugged and decided he'd made a friend and was happy enough about that. He purchased his robes and met Hagrid outside before continuing through Diagon Alley for the rest of his school things. Before long, all he had left was a wand. Hagrid left him alone again and told him to buy his wand while he went to fetch something. Really, it wasn't the first time Harry'd been left as an unattended minor, but it was still called into question Hagrid's skills as a guardian. Sighing, he entered Ollivander's shop.

The dusty shop was lined with rows of boxes and cabinets piled upon each other to the ceiling, resembling some sort of ramshackle apothecary's shop. An old man with frazzled white hair popped out from behind a shelf and screamed. Harry screamed back.

"Oh my, I do apologize," Ollivander said, hand still over his heart, "Hello, hello. Hogwarts? First year? Oh my, Harry Potter!"

Not bothering to wonder how he'd known, Harry greeted him and offered his hand to shake when the old man scuttled by. "I need a wand," he said simply.

"Of course you do! This is a wand shop. The only wand shop, incidentally," Ollivander disappeared into the mess, though his voice still floated over the mountains of clutter, "I remember your parents' wands, 11" Mahogany, 10 and a quarter Willow. I can't tell you what joy it brings me that you're finally here to get your wand." The old man came back with a stack of wands. He handed one to Harry, who took it and examined it. The piece of wood seemed to take magical energy from him and bind it like a hair tie.

"Well, give it a wave," Ollivander said expectantly. Harry swished it once and the magical threads it bound surged too quickly and something exploded. Ollivander plucked the wand from his fingers with a grimace and said, "Hmm probably not." Harry tried many wands, each doing more disastrous things, culminating in all of the light bulbs exploding over their heads. Harry replaced the offending wand on the counter, apologizing for the upteenth time.

"Quite alright, that's what cleaning charms are for. I do believe it is I who should be apologizing to you, Mr. Potter. I've never before gotten it so wrong...unless." Something dark colored Ollivander's eyes and he scuttled off to retrieve just one wand. He looked at the dark box with uncertainty. "This has been in my shop since before I inherited it. I wonder…" he trailed off as he handed the wand to Harry. Immediately, the wand resonated with Harry's magical core and a shower of red sparks bolstered by a wash of energy came out of the tip of the wand, leaving both Harry and Ollivander in a state of disarray.

"Yikes," the old man said, before taking the wand back, "Curiouser and curiouser."

"What's curious, sir?"

"It is curious that you should be destined for this wand, when its brother gave you that scar."

As Ollivander explained himself, the floaters spoke, Yes, the phoenix that gave its feathers gave the first when it was young and the second just before its first regenerative fire. It is rare that these things happen. Though you can perform magic without it, this wand will serve you well. The floaters were silent again.

"I can see that you will be a powerful wizard, Harry," Ollivander winked, "I expect great things from you."

Harry stroked Hedwig and decided he firmly liked Hagrid despite being left alone yet again at King's Cross. Sighing, he set about finding this platform 9 ¾ despite the platforms being named in whole numbers. He supposed that if he couldn't find it, he could go back to Diagon Alley and live life as a hermit. Just as he was about to give up, he found himself nearly trampled by a clan of red-headed people headed by a stout woman who was shouting, "...EVERY YEAR PACKED WITH MUGGLES," as if she weren't in the middle of muggle London. She was nice like Hagrid, a bit boisterous and loud, but was kind of enough to help him through the gateway to the Hogwarts express. Against his nagging sense of self preservation, Harry ran through the wall and found himself facing a massive, old-fashioned train. He boarded and found an empty compartment before settling himself and sticking his nose straight into one of his new books, something on Victorian flower symbology that he'd picked up for a ludicrously low price at Flourish and Blott's.

Harry expected the train ride to be uneventful, but somehow, he found himself sitting in front of two people who'd invited themselves amicably into his carriage, Ron, because he couldn't find a seat, and Hermione, because she was helping someone look for a toad. They were both characters, Ron, because he ate like a tornado and Hermione, because she was muggleborn and knew more about magic than Ron, who'd been raised all his life in the magical world. He decided he liked them, too. Since they were such good company, it was the least he could do to buy them sweets.

"Watch it Harry, those beans have a few nasty flavors in there," Ron warned, mouth half full with cauldron cake. Harry shrugged and ate another jelly bean, remarking, "Tastes like grass...I like it!" Ron gave him a look. "What? I've never had candy before. This is good!" Ron gave him another look.

Hermione grinned toothily at him. "Really? Are your parents dentists too?"

Harry looked down, unsure of what to say. Ron nudged her hard. "Are you daft," he said in a low whisper, "his parents are dead."

Hermione gasped, and said, "I'm sorry, Harry, I'd forgotten." She looked on the verge of tears.

"It's fine, really. My uncle mentions it all the time. I'm used to it. Really."

"So your relatives never let you eat candy?" Ron asked, brushing the incident off with ease.

"Hmm well, it would be more accurate to say that I was lucky to eat anything at all. I got maybe a meal a day. It never included anything like this stuff," he said, flicking an ear wax jelly bean into his mouth, "It's great."

"They starved you?!" Hermione moved to sit next to him, grasping his shoulder with one hand, "That's abuse! Harry have you ever told anyone? A police officer? A teacher?"

"I tried, once," he said, averting his eyes again, "I think that was the first time he broke anything."

Hermione threw his arms around him, surprising Harry, who didn't know what to do. He was more surprised when Ron moved to sit on his other side and placed a hand on his shoulder. Ron had even stopped chewing. Harry felt all warm and fuzzy and strangely emotional. The moment ended when Ron reached over and tossed a chocolate frog on Harry's lap.

"Mate, if you've never had chocolate, your world is about to explode. I'm serious." After losing one chocolate frog and biting the head off of another before it could get away, he found that Ron was quite right.


	3. The Broken Boy Ch. 3

Waiting in line to board the boats, Ron spotted Draco in the crowd and hissed to Harry, "Careful about that one, he's probably going to be a Slytherin. There's never been a witch or wizard who went who wasn't in Slytherin."

Harry gave a wry grin and replied, "You know that's not true, Ron. I've met Draco and he told me everyone who has magic in his blood is worth something. Does that sound like someone who'd go bad?"

Ron looked troubled and shook his head reluctantly. "Well no, but his family are Voldemort sympathizers!"  
Hermione cut in, shaking her head and saying, "The sins of the father, Ronald."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Hermione blinked in surprise, "You've never read the Bible?"

"What's the Bible?"

Before Hermione could respond, Harry said, "What Hermione means is that you shouldn't judge people based on their family backgrounds."

"Even so, we don't know him very well. We can't trust that he isn't as bad as his dad," Ron persisted.

"He did tell me he likes quidditch," Harry said crossing his arms.

"Oh, well then he's probably a good bloke after all," Ron said, all prejudices melting away like ice on a Weasley's flaming hair. Ron and Hermione got shoved ahead of him and Harry found himself in a boat with Draco Malfoy.

"Oh, speak of the devil," Harry said in greeting.

"And he shall appear," Draco said in response, accepting Harry's outstretched hand with a smug smirk, "Hi, er-"

"Harry Potter, sorry I never gave my name when we met."

"Blimey. You're Harry Potter? Wicked. No, it's my fault. I ran off before you could give it. What were you doing talking to the Weasley?"

"I met him on the train, why?"

"His family's the worst sort of company."

"I think he's actually pretty good company. What makes you say otherwise?"

"They're poor, and what's more, they support Dumbledore."

"Hmm I can see why that would be a problem. So your family does support Voldemort?" Harry was blunt. Taking it in stride, Draco laughed at Harry's forwardness and replied, "Please, Harry, I know who you are. Even so, it isn't so much Voldemort who we support, but the preservation of the wizarding world. I'm not an expert on the politics, but you can rest assured knowing that my family didn't side with Voldemort because of his winning personality."

"Thank you for your honesty, Draco. Do you really have to dislike Ron because of the beliefs of his family?"

"I suppose not, I mean, you don't dislike me for mine," Draco sighed, "Fine. I won't despise him, but don't expect me to be chummy with him. He eats like a pig."

"Fair enough. Your parents won't be upset that you're my friend?"

"No, I think they would think it an advantage. They're trying to bolster their image as a recovering dark family. Otherwise, I don't think they would mind who I play with in the school yard. I'm only eleven, after all."

They laughed good naturedly, ignoring the stares aimed their way from the other students. Their conversation was cut short by the doors of the Great Hall grinding open, admitting them into the cavernous dining hall bedecked with floating candle sticks and the night sky projected onto the ceiling. The floaters seemed amused at his astonishment and spoke encouraging things to him as he approached the sorting chair. Hermione was sorted into Gryffindor as expected and Draco was sorted into Slytherin, also as expected. Harry didn't know what to expect for himself and it scared him.

When Professor McGonagall finally called his name, "Harry Potter," the clamour of the hall died down as if it had been physically cut off with a knife. He could feel the eyes on him as he walked up to the chair and struggled to perch atop the tall stool.

He closed his eyes as one would before execution as the hat was lowered gently onto his head. The hat spoke to him, a gravelly voice sounding in his head.

"Well, Mr. Potter, you have me stumped. A great mind, yes, a great deal of courage and loyalty as well. You're a powerful one, too, with a tactical mind."

"Where were my parents sorted?"

"They were both in Gryffindor, lad. It's quite sad what happened to them. They were both brilliant, but decidedly belonged to the lion's den. You, lad, would do well in Slytherin. You could be great, you know." At this, the floaters intervened.

Sorting Hat, you know the expectations of him. While he is suited to that house, it would put him in great danger.

The hat grumbled, obviously disgruntled that the spirits of all things were present in this boy's mind. "My duty is to the students and I suppose putting him in danger would be a dereliction of it. Well, lad, what do you want?"

"I wish to be in the house my parents were in. Please." It was the only thing Harry ever wanted, to feel closer to his parents. The Sorting Hat, who heard his silent plea, complied and shouted, "Gryffindor!"

Hermione welcomed him to the table. He looked up to find that Hagrid was clapping for him from the staff table. As the last few students were sorted and Ron jogged triumphantly to the Gryffindor table to join the rest of the Weasley sons, Harry caught sight of a man at the staff table whose hard, black eyes seemed to follow him darkly.

"That's Snape, nasty one that is," one of the Weasley twins said, "Potions professor. Hates Gryffindors." The other twin piped up, "Yeah, everyone swears he's a death eater. Personally, I think his mother was some sort of toad. It would explain why he's a slimy git."

Percy, the eldest Weasley brother at the table, rapped his brothers on the head. "Boys, Professor Snape is an esteemed member of the faculty. You will do well not to speak ill of him."

The old man in the center of the staff table stood and called everyone to attention. He said a few words that made no sense to Harry at all, but the other students seemed unphased. The floaters, who'd been quiet since the sorting, were suddenly louder than thunder in his head. It is him. Stiffening, Harry directed his gaze to the mad old man he knew now to be Albus Dumbledore. "The headmaster?" Yes. Avoid him. He is powerful and must not be underestimated. We can do little to protect you from him. As they spoke, Dumbledore turned and made direct eye contact with Harry, who diverted his gaze quickly. He was interrupted in his thoughts when a Weasley twin forked a turkey leg onto his plate. "Eat up, Harry, before Ron gets all of it."

"Thanks, Fred," Harry replied, shoving a spoonful of something that was probably some sort of vegetable into his mouth. He didn't really care the retching noises Ron was making, whatever it was, it was wonderful. Fred looked gobsmacked and George poked his head to peer at Harry from Fred's other side.

"How'd you know-"

"-that he was Fred?" The twins asked, mischievous smirks on their faces. Harry swallowed and shrugged. "What, is that unusual? Clearly you're two different people." The twins shared an amused glance and returned their attention to the food.

Later on, when they'd all been lead to their dormitories, Harry found that he could not sleep. He took Hedwig from her cage and sat on the window sill, contemplating just how much his life had changed in these short days. As he sat in his very first pair of real pajamas stroking his very first pet feeling warm and full of food for the first time in his life, he could scarcely hold the tears that flowed freely from his eyes for the first time in years.

Professor McGonagall passed out the first year time tables at breakfast the next morning and Harry found himself taking notes instead of practicing magic. He supposed that it made sense since the first day of school should consist mainly of introductory material. Snape entered the room like an angry hornet, robes billowing behind him. He came with the expectation that his students were all miscreants and established rules Harry could remember from a visit to Stonewall Secondary. Mindlessly taking notes, he wondered if Snape would try to flush his head down a toilet and looked up to find Snape staring down at him over his hooked nose.

"Mr. Potter. Our new celebrity. Care to tell me why you think you can ignore me in the middle of my class?" Snape sneered.

"I'm sorry sir, I was taking notes." Snape looked down to discover he was telling the truth and sighed.

"You will address me as professor, boy. Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Hermione's hand shot up into the air as if the rest of her body was tied down to the chair. Snape ignored it pointedly, waiting for Harry's answer.

"Draught of Living Death, professor. I did read before I came to class." There was acid in his voice. Harry grew more and more confused as to why this man would purposefully seek conflict with him. Snape grilled him on more senseless facts until the man finally left him alone.

The floaters spoke then, admonishing him for his temper.

Look in his stream of magic. What do you see?

Harry looked and found that there was a strand of magic that tied his pool firmly to his own with another magical energy signature that he did not recognize.

Your mother. Harry looked up into Snape's eyes again, this time in schock. We do not know the details, but this man cares for your safety deeply. This connection is one of protection. Think on his words.

Asphodel and wormwood. Harry jerked as he remembered something he read. Asphodel was a type of lily that conveyed regret and wormwood meant bitter sorrow. Simply interpreted, it meant "I deeply regret Lily's death." Harry felt guilty then at reacting so vehemently when Snape's intentions were so obvious. He decided that maybe he would give Snape a chance before labelling him "a slimy git," as the twins would say.

Harry's first flying lesson had him bristling with excitement. He didn't care how weird it was that he'd be riding atop a broom. The mere thought of flight excited the hell out of him. Madam Hooch looked like an ex-army sergeant and lined the students up by the school's brooms. All the first years were out and Harry found a broom between Ron and Draco. He called his broom as instructed and it shot up, smacking the palm of his hand slightly. Draco had the same success and they looked at each other excitedly. Ron and Hermione were having more trouble.

"It's not a dog, Granger," Draco said, "Talk to it like it owes you money." Hermione sneered at him, but tried it anyway.

"Up!" she said more sternly, yelping in surprise when the broom finally obeyed. Ron looked over and tried again. "Get up, you stupid broom!" He was rewarded with a whack to the forehead.

In true Longbottom fashion, Neville had his accident and Madame Hooch had to escort him to the infirmary.

"Hey, the tubby oaf's dropped his remembrall," Draco said as he bent to pick up the object Neville received that very morning. "I don't think he'll mind if I return it to him later," he said with a smirk.

"Draco, forgive me if I don't believe you," Harry said as he strode over, "Why don't you hand that over to me and I'll get it back to him?"

Draco pouted. "Really, Harry, you must have more faith in me. I will give it back to him. I just want to look at it." A glint came to his eye. "How about a race?"

Just before he was about to agree, Hermione stalked by and said, "Harry, no! Madam Hooch said to remain on the ground."

"Relax, Hermione, I'm just getting Neville's remembrall back." Malfoy came over and placed a placating hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, don't worry about it. I promise if he gets in trouble, I'll take the fall."

Hermione huffed, but saw no way to prevent them from doing what they were clearly determined to do. Draco and Harry mounted their brooms and Rom launched the remembrall as far as he could. The two of them sped off, leaving small craters in the ground where they kicked off. Harry examined the broom and found that the broom rode the magical streams like a muggle underground rail. Harry pulled his broom up, riding a faster current up while Draco struggled against the wind and then turned his broom down at a steep angle, gaining speed with the help of gravity. His hands closed around the remembrall and he spun to stop himself from crashing into the castle walls, an astonished Draco fast on his heels.

"Blimey, you look like you've done that before," Draco said breathlessly, "I've never seen anyone fly like that. You looked like a man unafraid for his life!"

"Well yeah," Harry replied, touching down and starting his walk back, "The falling, I've done before, but the flying is new. I think I might love it more than chocolate or grass jelly beans."

Draco pulled a face, but soon turned to Harry with a concerned frown on his face. "You're not trying to be funny, are you? When did you have the chance to fall from that kind of height?"

"Well, when I was a kid, I sort of accidentally got myself onto the roof of the house while I ran from my uncle and decided, you know, it would be a better idea to hurt myself jumping off the roof than letting my uncle see me there and beat me anyway."

Draco gave Harry a strange look that wasn't sympathy or pity, which Harry appreciated, but still made him squirm a little. He stayed quiet the rest of the walk back. They returned to find a red-faced McGonagall waiting to reprimand them. Later on, when they were released from McGonagall's care, Hermione, Ron, Blaise, and Pansy met them with angry looks. Pansy looked the most incensed. "Only you two would get to play Quidditch for breaking the rules!"

The work at Hogwarts was surprisingly note-heavy. The curriculum focused on magical theory that was explained so that eleven year-olds might understand it. There was a lot of mental imagery and wand movement imitation. McGonagall often referred to transfiguration in terms of knitting, as bizarre as it was. Transfiguring objects, she explained, was much like unravelling a knitted blanket and re-knitting it into something else. Flitwick explained charms in terms of music. Wands were like conducting batons that manipulated magic the way that batons manipulated tempo. Harry's favorite was Snape's cooking analogies.

"Come now, Weasley, if you can stir soup, you can stir a potion," Snape admonished as Ron failed yet again to stir his potion the right number of turns and melted a hole through his cauldron. It was double potions with Slytherin. "You act like you've never held a spoon before."

"That's because his mum probably spoon feeds him all his food," Draco yelled from where he was sitting with Harry. The class erupted into giggles as Ron threw a leech at Draco in retaliation.

"It's not my fault I wasn't born with one in my mouth, you ponce," Ron bit back.

"WEASLEY. No throwing in my class, ten points from Gryffindor for the cauldron you owe me," Snape snapped, putting an end to the laughter. After class, Ron directly engaged in a shouting match with Draco in the courtyard. They were trading obscenities when Harry found them. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini were attempting to hold Draco back while Hermione and Neville were trying to hold Ron back. Harry cast a silent, wandless full body-bind and both Draco and Ron fell into a heap with their friends. He discreetly terminated the curse and ran over to the group to help his friends to their feet.

"What happened? Why were they fighting?"

Blaise and Neville looked reluctant to answer while Pansy and Hermione wasted no time explaining.

"Well," Hermione began, "Ronald called Draco ferret-faced Slytherin scum-"

"-and Draco called Ron a Gryffindor Weasel," Pansy continued, "Then they both started flinging insults at each other-"

"-and then drew their wands on each other-"

"-so naturally, we had to step in to prevent these oafs from getting themselves detention-"

"-or worse, expelled," Hermione finished. Both girls kept firm grips on the offending boys' robes, but nodded to each other in understanding.

Harry looked from Draco to Ron and laughed. Sneering, Draco asked, "What's so funny?"

"Yeah," Ron joined in, "What's got you in such a good mood?"

"Don't you see? Weasel, ferret, they're both from the same family." They still looked confused. "They're practically the same animal. It's a really funny coincidence and the way I see it, it doesn't matter which house you're from if you're the same rodent." The boys looked at each other and shrugged, blushing at the revelation and losing some of the anger. They parted ways again, with curt apologies. Pansy winked at Harry as they turned to leave. Harry couldn't suppress the full-body shudder.

"That one scares me, Hermione," Harry said.

"I don't know, for a Slytherin, she does know a thing or two about putting these idiots in their places." Harry stared at Hermione and shuddered again.

On their way back to Gryffindor Tower, the trio got completely lost because the staircases moved erratically, altered by a magical signature that felt out of place within the castle's energy stream. Despite his best attempts to turn them away from the altered staircases, they ended up in front of the one door out of thousands that was forbidden for students. Stranded on the platform with nowhere else to go, they entered the corridor despite Hermione's whines about expulsion being a "worse fate than death". Ron was oblivious to her whines and pushed ahead, either curious as to what lay behind the door or too hungry to care where he was going. The floaters whispered urgent warnings in his ear, but Harry knew that someone wanted to find this corridor. It would arouse more suspicion if he didn't follow along. He knew what lay behind the door before they opened it. Facing the three mugs of the ferocious three headed dog sent them screaming in a panic out of the corridor and down a series of mysteriously placed staircases that lead them directly to the Fat Lady's portrait. After giving the Fat Lady a half-assed excuse, they were admitted, little hearts still pounding. Hermione was the first to regain her words and asked, "Did anyone else notice the trapdoor under that thing's feet?" Harry shook his head in wonder and Ron groaned, flopping onto the common room floor.

On Halloween, Professor Flitwick finally gave his class a chance at actually performing magic. He spent a solid hour describing the proper swish and flick, drawing out the proper diagram and the phonetic spelling of the levitation charm. Harry spent some time pretending to practice and watched how the others were getting along. Ron's attempts were no more graceful than his attempts at potions. Hermione was sitting with her arms crossed smugly over her chest. Obviously, she'd gotten it down ages ago. He examined the students and found that though the incantation was correct for most, little things like the wrong wand movement or lack of understanding of the spell itself caused their attempts to backfire. Harry ducked when Seamus Finnigan's wand movements started whipping his magical energy into something resembling an incendio and looked up to find that Seamus's eyebrows were gone. When the class was over, Harry huffed to himself, wondering how he was ever going to learn enough to defend himself if he knew everything a first year course had to offer. The floaters sensed his distress, soothed his anxieties and spoke assurances to him. All will come in time with patience.

"I know. I can't ask the professors for help because it would be dangerous." Alone in the classroom, he grasped his wand lightly in his hand and silently cast the charm on all the feathers left abandoned on their desks. "I feel like I'm wasting my time here." The feathers floated airily around the room as he watched, running his dilemma through his head over and over again. Harry left the room when the dinner bell rang, feathers still floating behind him. He passed Professor Flitwick in the hall and made his way down to dinner, lost in his thoughts.


	4. The Broken Boy Ch. 4

Harry plopped himself down in front of the Halloween feast and loaded his plate. His fork was halfway to his mouth when he noticed that Hermione wasn't at the table to deliver her customary lecture for ruining his teeth with pumpkin juice and cauldron cakes.

"Neville, where's Hermione?"

"I heard from Parvati that she's been locked up in the girls' bathroom since charms crying."

"What? Why?"

"Well after charms, Ron started badmouthing her to Seamus and she heard him call her a know-it-all." Ron looked up from his food. "Oy! It wasn't my fault!" Harry glared pointedly at Ron and got up to find Hermione. Appetite forgotten, Harry stalked down the halls to the girls' bathroom in a dark mood. As he turned a corner, he heard screaming and broke into a run. He burst into the bathroom to find a massive creature wielding a club standing there among the stalls. It was a mountain troll dressed in rawhide and furs, clearly incensed. Upon closer inspection, he saw Hermione collapsed under the sinks, obscured from the creature's view. Thinking her dead, Harry's vision turned red and he was consumed with rage that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt. The troll swung at him, hitting stalls and sending debris everywhere. Harry barely dodged in time and hissed as slivers of wood cut his face. Unable to think or even hear the words of the floaters in his mind, Harry took his wand in hand and cast the first spell to kill he could recall. The troll was split nearly in half by a cut that travelled from its forehead to its groin. The carcass thudded to the ground with the sickening sound of flesh on wet tile.

Soaked in blood, Harry heaved, riding out the waves of his rage and heard the thundering of the floaters in his head. Calm, they rumbled, the girl is unharmed. You can see that with your own eyes. Harry's eyes snapped to Hermione, still curled under the sinks where she'd fainted. He could see her life force still firmly tethered to the living plane and her chest still rising and falling steadily, clearly alive. Another cry from behind him startled him and he spun to find the Hogwarts staff headed by the headmaster observing the scene in shock.

"Mr. Potter! What is the meaning of this?" McGonagall seized him by the shoulders, checking over. "Is any of this blood yours?"

"No, no, please professor I-I-" Harry was frozen, still reeling from his experience. "Hermione! She's there under the sinks. I don't know if the troll hurt her!" Madam Pomfrey pushed her way through the throng of teachers and bustled her way to the sinks, scooping Hermione into her arms.

"She's alright, Mr. Potter, only fainted. I'll take her to the infirmary." The mediwitch looked to McGonagall. "I'll need to examine Mr. Potter when you've finished with him." McGonagall nodded and Pomfrey left for the infirmary. The headmaster strode over to Harry and spelled the blood off of his clothes.

"Harry, my boy. Take a breath and tell me what happened."

"I left dinner to find Hermione. Someone told me she'd been crying and I was worried. When I got here, I saw the troll and-" he bit his lip. The floaters were thundering again. You must not tell him what you did. He must not know of your power. Harry was panicking again.

"What happened, Harry, you must tell the headmaster," McGonagall said, kneeling to his level. Dumbledore looked at him expectantly, a hint of suspicion forming on his face.

"It was accidental magic," said a voice from behind them. Everyone's heads snapped up as Professor Quirrel emerged from the debris of a stall sporting a cut on his cheek.

"Quirinus," Snape said as he approached Dumbledore's side, "What are you doing here? I thought you went to warn the students about the troll." Harry couldn't help but notice him limp.

"I was, but when I saw your injury from earlier, I didn't think you could catch it and thought I could head it off from a different route." Tension was apparent between the two men and crackled in the air between them.

"Mr. Potter, is this true?" the headmaster asked, levelling Harry with a piercing gaze, "Did you kill this troll?"

Seeing his chance, Harry nodded shakily, "Yes, I don't know what happened, but before I knew it, the troll was dead."

"Do you remember exactly how you did it?" Dumbledore's voice was odd, growing more suspicious by the second.

"No, professor." Harry didn't dare say more and ducked his head. Do not meet his eyes, child, the floaters were saying.

"Albus," Snape cut in, "You can't expect a first year to possess the know-how to take down a fully grown troll."

"I agree," Professor Quirrell said, fixing Snape with a confused look.

"Nevertheless, what you did was extremely foolish, taking on a mountain troll by yourself. Ten points from Gryffindor for your senselessness," McGonagall said, seizing both of Harry's shoulders. She wasn't angry exactly, only worried for Harry's well-being.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said soothingly, "As you can see, everything worked out in the end. I think Mr. Potter deserves some commendation for being so brave for the sake of a friend. Fifteen points to Gryffindor for your bravery, my boy." Albus straightened and turned to leave.

McGonagall turned to Snape. "Severus, I need to take care of this corpse and make sure the students are secure in their dorms. Could you take Mr. Potter to the infirmary?" Snape nodded and gestured for Harry to follow. Quirrell followed them out into the hall. They made an unexpected detour to Snape's office near the dungeons. Snape pulled the door shut and knelt in front of Harry with Quirrell watching on from his side.

"Potter, I need you to be honest with me, now," he said urgently, "Where did you learn that curse?"

"Which one, professor? I thought you said it was accidental magic." Harry forced himself to remain calm with the floaters' encouragement. Quirrel knelt too and spoke in reserved tone that was more intrigued than accusatory.

"I think the professor was referring to the unmistakably dark curse that bisected the troll, Mr. Potter. No act of accidental magic could produce such a specific curse." Harry stiffened, clamming up as he tried hard not to let the panic show on his face.

"Harry," Snape said gentler, sensing his distress, "We will not punish you for any of this. That spell you cast was a rudimentary cutting curse, but a dark one that left an energy signature that could only come from one with an affinity for dark magic." Snape looked frightened, a strange emotion on his face. Harry's brow furrowed.

"If that were true, why didn't Dumbledore sense it?" Harry shook slightly, looking up panicked still.

"Only others with the dark magic affinity can sense something that subtle. Answer me, Harry, how is it that you can cast this curse?"

Harry's mouth floundered a bit. "It-it was in the books required for Defense." Snape blinked and whipped his head around to sneer at Quirrell.

"Severus, the book was a complete repertoire of defense spells. I was only going to teach the first half of neutral spells. I didn't expect a first year to read all the way to the end and have the power reserves to cast anything more dangerous." Intrigued, Quirrell pulled out his wand. "Harry, I'm going to test your magical core to read your affinity index. Do I have your permission?"

Harry looked uncertain. "Will you tell Dumbledore if I am? Dark, that is?" Both Snape and Quirrell looked at Harry as if he'd grown a second head.

"Why Mr. Potter," Quirrell said slowly, "Why wouldn't you want the headmaster to know? He could protect you. I'm sure you're far too valuable to him to let you come to harm." Harry clammed up again, knowing he'd made a mistake.

"I'll only do it on the condition that you do. Not. Tell. The headmaster." he muttered, almost to himself. Quirrell and Snape shared a concerned look before Quirrell waved his wand at Harry, whispering the words to the spell. When he was done, his eyes widened.

"He's as dark as they come, Severus.," he confirmed. Snape sighed hard, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had the worst migraine in the world.

"James and Lily's son with a powerful affinity for dark magic," he almost whimpered, "Why don't you want the headmaster to know, Harry?"

"I don't want to draw attention to myself. Please," Harry pleaded, "If he knew, I'd be in trouble."

"Harry," Quirrell said, tentatively offering a comforting hand on his shoulder, "A dark affinity doesn't mean you'll be in trouble. It just means we have to tweak your academic work to include control over darker magic. Most people remain neutral and those who have affinities for one side or another can even be said to be more powerful than those who do not. It's not a bad thing, it's just a different kind of magic."

Harry shook his head adamantly. "I don't have any problems with being dark. It's just Dumbledore that I'm worried about. He expects me to be a light wizard, I know it. If he knew I wasn't-" Harry stopped, noticing too late that he'd said too much. "Something bad will happen."

Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere with the boy, he sighed. "Despite how idiotic and irrational your fears are, we," he said giving Quirrell a pointed look, "will not tell Dumbledore about this...incident."

"Thank you," Harry said, sinking with relief.

"Stand up, Potter, we're taking you to Madam Pomfrey," Snape clucked, rising to his feet. Harry stood from his stool on shaky legs and promptly threw up from the nausea he'd been fighting since he entered the room. At once, Snape was at his side while Quirrell vanished the sick away. Snape ran a basic diagnostic spell. Quirrell looked on. "Perhaps magical exhaustion or shock?"

"It's not magical exhaustion, it's a side effect of refeeding after a long period of starvation. Go get Poppy." Quirrell bolted out the door while Snape pulled out a potion and emptied it down Harry's throat. The potion burned all the way down, but Harry could feel his spinning world levelling out a little.

"Potter," Snape said gently from above him, "Tell me how it is that you are showing signs of severe malnutrition that dates back years. Be honest with me, please. I only want to help you."

Harry looked Snape right in the eye and found that all malice from the past few weeks was gone from his expression, leaving only horror. The floaters whispered in his head. Trust him. His words are genuine. Harry weakly lifted a hand to Snape's forehead and reached out with legilimency to show him, not everything, but enough. Everything the Dursleys had done to him passed between them in a matter of seconds followed by the knowledge that Dumbledore placed him there and fear that such a man who would leave him in such a place without checking in on him or telling him anything of his own life could only mean him harm. Snape sat stone faced, occlumency shields barely holding under the torrent of memories and his own emotional distress.

"Don't tell Dumbledore,"Harry said as he pulled his hand away.

"Potter-how-?" Snape's mouth floundered as he searched for the right words. Potter was a victim of abuse at the hands of that damned horse-faced woman and her husband and he didn't trust Dumbledore. That last thought had Snape the most troubled.

"I won't tell the headmaster, Potter, but I have to tell Madam Pomfrey," Snape said, gathering Harry in his arms. He thought his composure might break when he felt how spare and thin Harry was, but let the urgency of the situation take him over as he sped off to find potions after depositing Harry in a chair. Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room just as Snape was returning with several armfuls of potions. She took in Harry's slumped form and ran her diagnostic spells. Her eyes widened in shock, but she maintained her professional manner. Knowing what she would find, Snape handed her potions and she spelled them into Harry wordlessly. Satisfied that he was stable, she levitated an unconscious Harry onto his back and moved him into the hospital wing. Later on, when both of them had time to calm down, Poppy Pomfrey found herself sharing a pot of tea with Snape in her office.

"Severus, what in Merlin's name happened to that boy?" she said, warming her hands with her tea cup, "The diagnostic spells revealed abuse that stretches back to his infancy. The only reason he is alive is because everything he sustained was magically healed by his own magic reserves. I can't tell for certain how his magical core is fairing, but it seems to be uncompromised. Harry has at least that going for him."

"I know, Poppy," Snape said, dropping his face into his hands, "He showed me everything."

"Showed you? You couldn't mean-"

"He's a natural legilimens. He showed me everything that happened to him at the hands of those monsters." Despite Harry's misgivings about Dumbledore, Snape felt that he could trust Poppy with this matter because they had an understanding about children in abused households. Snape dealt with many darker families who, under the pressure of the war, took out their anger on their children. Understanding the need for discretion, they turned the cases over to ministry social services as they came and let Dumbledore assume what he wanted to.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Poppy said, taking a sip of the tea, "If his magical core was powerful enough to keep him alive this long, who knows how powerful he could be? What should we do? This time, reporting it to child services might not be the best idea."

"I don't know, but he adamantly refuses to tell the headmaster."

"I can understand if he has trouble trusting authority figures. It's a wonder he chose to trust you at all. For now, we should nurse him back to health as best we can and suggest that he go somewhere else for the summer."

"Poppy, it's more complicated than that," he huffed, ignoring Poppy's incensed muttering that sounded suspiciously like "Of course it is".

"There are wards around Privet Drive that protect him from the dark lord. He has to stay there at least once a year for the wards to stay intact."

"At this rate, I think those relatives of his have done more to that child than he-who-must-not-be-named ever has." Poppy huffed indignantly.

"The best plan that I can come up with right now is to get him through at least two weeks at his relatives' house and then discreetly get his classmates to invite him to their homes for the rest of the summer."

Poppy nodded, finger on her chin. "Since Dumbledore cannot legally monitor where Mr. Potter is spending his holidays, that sounds like a good plan." Knowing that neither would get any sleep that night, they spelled the teapot full again and brooded together until their patient stirred.


	5. The Broken Boy Ch. 5

Harry woke groggily the next day, weak, but much better than he'd felt in days. By the time he finished fumbling around with his glasses and shoved them onto his face, he was confronted with about a dozen potions, which he downed with barely enough time to breathe. The hand that replaced the empty bottles with full ones was calloused and sure. The person connected to the hand was equally calloused, his face settled in a permanent grimace.

"Potter, you are to take these potions twice a day, every day. You may come here or to my office after breakfast and after dinner. Is that clear?" Snape cleared away the bottles.

"Yes, professor," Harry said, fidgeting a little. The events of yesterday came crashing down on him all at once and he felt his ears redden with embarrassment. They sat in awkward silence until Harry cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry I threw up on your shoes." Snape actually let out a guffaw that sounded something like a laugh.

"Potter, you did not throw up on my shoes. You do, however, owe me new bedsheets. You threw up on those and passed out." Harry actually snickered. Snape saw the tension creep away from Harry's shoulders and spoke gently. "I didn't tell Dumbledore." Harry's head snapped up before snapping back to his hands.

"I had to tell someone."

"I know, Harry, and I am grateful that you chose to confide in me. Madam Pomfrey and I will not tell anyone you don't want to know, but you must understand that the situation is a bit more complicated."

"What's complicated, sir?"

"As teachers, we are legally obligated to report this matter to the ministry. However, for your safety, it is not a good idea to report your case for fear of attracting unwanted attention from many bad people who wish you harm. There are wards around your relatives' home that require you to live there for at least a few weeks to remain active. Afterwards, you can go where you please."

"You-you mean I don't have to stay there?" Harry was shocked beyond words. He'd never even considered it, the possibility of leaving the Dursleys'. Having no friends or contact with the outside world tended to do that. Harry trembled with excited energy at the revelation, causing Snape to place a steadying hand on his back.

"As long as you are discreet, then yes, you can leave and perhaps stay with a friend and no one else has to know."

"I-that-that sounds wonderful."

After their conversation, Snape left and Harry slept once more for a few hours and woke again to an armful of Hermione Granger, who bowled into Harry's arms like a cannon ball made of brown hair. Gasping for air, he pleaded for help from Ron and Draco, who stood off to the side.

"Sorry mate, I think you're stuck," Ron said as he shrugged.

"Oh come off it, Potter. Let her smother you with gratitude for your heroics," Draco said, nodding sagely at his own advice.

In his arms, Hermione was squealing something like, "Oh, Harry, they told me you killed the troll and got hurt because of me. Are you okay? Why have you been asleep this whole time? I thought you died!"

"I didn't die, Hermione," he chuckled, extricating himself from the blubbering mess that was Hermione, "I'm just tired and starved. You lot bring me any food? I hope there's still some spinach left over from lunch."

"Talk now, food later, Harry," Draco laughed, plopping down at the foot of the bed.

"Yeah, Harry, the whole school's gone nutters trying to find out how you took down a fully grown troll," Ron said, plopping down on the other side, "The rumors are saying you either mastered the killing curse or flew at it with a knife and slit its throat."

"Oh good Merlin, really," he grouched, "It was accidental magic, alright? Can the rumor mill stop milling now?"

"Of course not, Harry," Draco said smugly, "The rumor mill can't be stopped by the truth. That's preposterous. Your heroics are going to be the talk of the school until you graduate."

"Or until you do something else that's stupid and idiotic like taking on a fully grown mountain troll," Hermione said, punching his arm.

"Hey! What happened to the gratitude?" Harry said, rubbing his sore arm. At that, Hermione was blubbering in his arms again.

"I still don't see why you think any of this is a bad thing, Potter," Draco said, examining his nails.

"It's because he's not a ponce, git," Ron said, smacking him playfully.

"All of you are mental," Harry groaned, flopping back into the pillows.

The entire school hushed when Harry entered the Great Hall at dinner. Harry could feel hundreds of eyes settling on him as he creeped over to his usual spot at the Gryffindor table. While chatter resumed when he sat, he still felt wary and continuously dodged question after question from his house mates. After he fought off the last of the questions, he noticed that a bowl of soup and a modest pile of bread appeared before him. Raising an eyebrow, he looked to Snape at the staff table and found him staring at him with one side of his mouth quirked in a weird semi-grin. The professor winked before turning his head back to Quirrell, who was muttering something quietly to him. Scoffing into his soup, Harry returned to his dinner and his adoring fanbase.

The next morning, Harry sat with Ron Hermione in the main courtyard, their noses stuck in Quidditch Through the Ages. A pale hand grabbed the book just as another pressed a note into Harry's hand.

"Library books are not to be taken from the castle, Potter. Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape quipped as he billowed away.

"Blimey, what's his problem," Ron huffed. Harry shrugged.

Following the note's instructions, Harry made his way up to Flitwick's office after dinner and was surprised to find not two, but three professors waiting for him, two of which were perched comically on goblin-sized leather armchairs. He couldn't suppress a giggle. Quirrell squirmed while Snape, unphased, crossed his arms and gave him a warning glare. Harry stifled his giggles and greeted his teachers. "Hello professors, what is it you need from me?"

"Mr. Potter," Flitwick squealed in delight, "Come, sit. Would you like a biscuit?"

"Tea only, Potter. Do remember that he is on a schedule Flitwick. Biscuits and the like would be most unwise." Harry raised an eyebrow. Flitwick knew?

"So sorry, Severus," Flitwick squeaked only half apologetically. Once Harry was settled, he continued. "Do you recall leaving my classroom quite late in the afternoon on Halloween, Harry?" Harry's eyes bugged out.

"Professor, I-that was-"

"N-none of t-that now, H-harry. I c-cornered him before he could tell anyone about it," Quirrell stuttered, speech impediment back with full force.

"Yes, he confronted me yesterday and asked about your progress in my class. I must say I had not anticipated that you would have an affinity for dark magic. Don't worry, I know how that might look to people who don't understand and I have sworn myself to secrecy. As a fellow wielder of darker magic, your secret is safe with me." Harry thought he might be dreaming. Flitwick? Dark magic? Yes, it was definitely a dream.

"Don't look at me like that," he continued, "Goblins traditionally have a firmer grasp of the darker arts, what with the rebellions and all. I'm more curious about you, dear child. How on earth did you get all those feathers to float unaided in my classroom?"

"Yes, Potter, do enlighten us," drawled Snape from his too-small chair. Harry raked a hand through his hair, listening to the floaters in his head muddle over the decision to reveal his secrets. "You can trust him, Harry," Snape continued, "He's taken a wizard's oath. This is all for the sake of educating you in controlling your magic, as we discussed."

Harry huffed frustratedly and, since the cat was out of the bag anyway, waved his hand and transfigured all of the chairs in the office into giant neon beanbags he'd seen in Dudley's room. The 90's were a confusing time.

"MERLIN'S BEARD," Flitwick squeaked, sinking deeply into the electric pink beanbag he sat on, "WANDLESS, SILENT TRANSFIGURATION." Snape was just as dumbfounded, staring open-mouthed at the eleven year old before him. Quirrell's eyes were bugged out and his chin was pulled back into his neck. His hands groped around the bean bag and his body was shock still as if he were afraid of the neon green polyester encasing his body.

"T-that certainly is impressive, P-potter," he muttered. Harry wondered if he was having a nervous breakdown. They spoke extensively on exactly what Harry did and did not already know, realizing quickly that while he possessed tremendous raw power, he did not understand much of magical theory and lacked a comprehensive spell vocabulary. In the interest of academics, Flitwick gleefully offered to join Quirrell in filling in Harry's educational gaps. Snape led Harry out of the tiny office and down to his own office to give him his potions for the day.

"Professor Flitwick was practically falling over his own feet to teach you, Harry. You must be pleased," Snape said, eyeing Harry from the corner of his eye.

"I am," he replied, head bent in embarrassment, "but I don't think I want him squealing with joy every time I see him. My secret would be out by breakfast tomorrow." Snape grunted in agreement. Harry dutifully took his potions, grimacing and the taste as usual, but swallowing without complaint.

"Honestly Potter, they're potions, not spinach puree," Snape drawled, taking in Harry's expression.

"I happen to like spinach," he replied, "and that is not spinach." Snape only rolled his eyes.

"Professor," Harry said, eyeing Snape's limp as he made his way to the potions cupboard, "Why are you limping?"

"I was attacked by a flea-bitten mongrel, if you must know," Snape huffed.

"Was it the three headed dog and did it happen on Halloween when Quirrell let the troll out of the third-floor corridor?" Harry was blunt. Snape spun on his heel and fixed Harry with a squinty glare. "Whatever you might be thinking of in that brain of yours, it's wrong. Quirrell was performing routine maintenance with me when the bumbling idiot lost control of the troll who then sicked the dog on me." Harry looked doubtful.

"Why does Quirrell want the Philosopher's Stone," he said, unphased.

"How did you know?"

"Uh books, duh." That wasn't exactly true. He remembered something from the back of a chocolate frog card in conjunction with the weird package with the spinny magic lines and his new copy of Hogwarts: A History.

"As suspicious as he might be acting," Snape said, pinching his nose, "Quirrell is genuine in his desire to help you. He is protecting the stone within this school until it can be moved. He won't do you any harm. If that proves untrue, you will leave him to me. None of what you discovered is to be shared outside of this room. Is that clear, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, professor." He wasn't lying again, exactly, he only slightly nudged Hermione and Ron towards the answer to what lay under the trap door by the dog's feet. His visits with Snape went along similar lines, only with fewer subjects that would stop Snape's heart on a good day. One evening, however, Harry surprised Snape by bringing Draco along for one of his visits.

"Godfather, why didn't you tell me Harry was into dark magic and that you were giving him nutritive potions to treat the malnourishment and abuse under the hands of his relatives?" Draco was as blunt as Harry, a trait that Severus wasn't sure rubbed off on Draco from Harry or the other way around.

"Draco, it is simply because it is a matter of Harry's privacy and subsequently none of your business," he groused, bracing himself for another migraine. "Did you tell him?" He directed the question at Harry.

"No, you just did," Harry sighed back, equally fatigued by Draco's way with words.

"I knew it," Draco said triumphantly before punching Harry in the arm. "That's for not telling me yourself."

"Hey, I didn't want to trouble you with any of this...stuff."

"We're family, Harry. I'm pissed you didn't tell me." Harry looked at him quizzically.

"Don't tell me you didn't know," Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, as smart as you are, you can be quite dense. Look, Dorea Potter, your paternal grandmother, was my maternal grandfather's sister. We are totally related." Harry's eyes bugged out. He wasn't sure if he was happy, shocked, or crestfallen at that point.

"Draco," Snape clucked, "Be careful with Harry's delicate constitution. You should know that all pureblood families are practically related to each other. Draco, you're distantly related to Weasley, who is technically from a pureblood family. I don't see you formally claiming him as your kin."

"Oh yuck, Severus. Low blow."

Harry's lessons with Flitwick and Quirrell were challenging, but mostly a lot of book work, which he was happy to do. Not wanting to stress his still developing magical core, they paced his spellwork according to what his body could handle. This included rudimentary spells that were up to par with third year standards. Beyond that, they taught a lot of magical theory, which Harry was able to pick up quickly with the help of the floaters' gift. Quirrell was a capable, but distant instructor who seemed to care for his advancement, but was erratic and quick to scold. He also took up the task of educating him on dark magic's history, stuttering the whole way through Grindelwald. When they got to Voldemort, however, the stutter was strangely absent.

"Voldemort was shrewd politician and a genius," he said, eyes taking on a strange, frenzied light. "With Dumbledore's restructuring of the Ministry after the defeat of Grindelwald, all dark magic was stigmatized despite its historic use to aid the wizarding world. Suddenly, Merlin was being touted as a light wizard simply because he was more powerful and all practitioners of the dark arts were wrongfully arrested. People flocked to Voldemort's side as magic itself was being phased out. More territory was being given over to the muggles as a measure of so-called protection for muggles against the dangers of magic. Where once magic was used freely, every move anyone made could cause mass panic over the return of dark magic. Harry, every dark spell out there once had legitimate uses in wizarding society, even the killing curse that gave you that scar. It offered painless, humane deaths to people in great pain nearing the end of their lives. That is why I say that dark magic is not inherently evil. It is all about intent."

"Sir," Harry said slowly, "what about the mass killings and blood purity nonsense? Was that part of the dark lord's agenda? It doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't because it wasn't," Quirrell answered too quickly, "Something happened to Voldemort at the height of his popularity. Blood purity has valid origins in the protection of the magical world from discovery by muggles. Inter-breeding creates security risks and the dark lord advocated strongly for better regulation of muggle relations, not this blood purity nonsense people talk about today. If muggles found out about magic and decided to use it for themselves, worse things than nuclear war could happen."

"If his reasoning was so justified, what happened to him? What started the war?"

Quirrell eyed him silently. "That would be telling, Mr. Potter."

On another evening, it was Snape's turn to give Harry a heart attack. "I knew your mother," Snape said, as Harry finished the last of the day's potions. Harry felt his heart clench at the professor's tone.

"I know," he said quietly, "That thing about the asphodel and the wormwood? Figured it out." Snape grunted, as if to say, "I should have known".

"She was my greatest friend and the day she died was the saddest in all my life."

"What was she like?"

"Kind. Beautiful. Cheeky. A lot like you, really." Harry snorted.

"I'm touched, professor. You think I'm beautiful?" Harry batted his eyelashes at him.

"That insufferable snark, you got from your father."

"You knew him too? I take it you didn't like him very much."

"No, I hated him, actually."

"For taking mum away?"

"Among other things."

Harry could feel that Snape was hiding something that he was too afraid to tell, but Harry decided not to push it. He didn't expect Snape to cave first, however.

"I need to show you something, but you must promise to see it through to the end and know that you might hate me after this." Snape looked genuinely afraid. Without warning, Harry was hit with a wave of memories transmitted through legilimency. He saw the prophecy, Snape handing it over to Voldemort, Snape begging that Lily be spared, the promise he made after her death to protect him. When he emerged, he was on the floor, being watched warily by Snape. As the tears coursed down his cheeks, he reached out for him and was immediately met with a fierce, fatherly embrace from the man who was the unwitting cause of his parents' demise. He wasn't angry, only sad for all that the both of them had endured.

"I forgive you," he said, meeting Snape's watery eyes. Snape floundered, not knowing what else to say.

"Your eyes, Harry. They're your mother's. I wanted to hate you for owning them, but I couldn't. It means...much to me that you do not look upon me with hate with those eyes."

It was this incident that Harry, the youngest seeker in a century, was preoccupied with on the day of the first quidditch match. Honestly, he saw the snitch earlier because he could see its magical line darting about the field. He was too distracted to notice that idiot of a captain shove him or that his broom was being cursed. Too fed up with himself to care for his own safety, he threw himself off the broom and swallowed the stupid snitch on accident. It wasn't a flattering way to win, but it was a win and the school with the exception of Slytherin agreed with him. Malfoy, the youngest Slytherin seeker in a century, was miffed at first, but he soon recovered, stating, "I don't want to touch something that's been in your mouth, Potter. Thanks for offering to let me hold it anyway." Despite Hermione's insistence that the culprit behind the cursing was Snape, Harry firmly insisted that it wasn't, knowing what he knew. His broom was wrapped in a malignant magical signature that didn't belong to anyone he could recognize. Looking around the stadium, he caught Quirrell's eye and felt a sudden prickling sensation in his scar. Somehow, he got the impression that it wasn't Quirrell he was looking at anymore. A passerby broke his line of sight and the moment was gone. Shrugging, Harry trotted off to celebrate his victory with his friends.


	6. The Broken Boy Ch. 6

Harry raked a hand through his messy black hair, wondering just how he ended up in this mess. Malfoy and fang trudged beside him as they trekked through the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night. The dragon fiasco got Harry, Hermione, and Neville of all people thrown in detention. At the very least, Hagrid would keep his job. Malfoy, surprisingly, seemed to be in detention for the kicks. "I've never been in trouble before," he said, "Father suggested I try it. Said it would be good for character."

"I still don't see why you'd voluntarily tramp through the Forbidden Forest so close to exams," Harry said, shaking his head, "Why are you really here?"

Draco sighed and stopped walking, looking Harry in the eye bearing an expression that was serious for once. He even looked a little concerned and Harry was even a little touched. "Harry, you've been avoiding everybody since Christmas. I haven't been able to get a hold of you since I got back from holiday, so maybe, I thought you could use some company," he said, slapping him on the back, "I wasn't joking about this being a character building exercise, though. Father was insistent I give it a try."

It was true he'd been aloof since the Mirror of Erised was moved. Harry knew it wasn't real, what he saw in the mirror. He could see the lack of magical threads coming from the ghostly figures of his long-dead family who had his kneecaps and his eyes, feel the mirror probing his mind gently. Desire spelled backwards. Gimmicky name. As showy and elaborate as the mirror was, Harry knew that it was probably just some sort of strange curiosity, the type of thing that showed up at a castle as old as Hogwarts. He ended up going back to see it every evening under the invisibility cloak Dumbledore sent him for Christmas. Now, the invisibility cloak was far from a gimmick. Even though it was clearly some sort of ploy to get him to go looking for the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry decided that a cloak that belonged to his father was too valuable to burn. Sentimentality, however, did not stop him from scanning the cloak rigorously, removing every compulsion spell Dumbledore had weaved into the fabric.

He spent every evening under that cloak for at least a month after discovering the Mirror of Erised. As logical as his analysis of the mirror was, he couldn't squash the burning sense of longing that welled up in his chest. On his fifth or sixth visit, Harry reached out to the mirror tentatively to touch his mother's face. When his hand met only glass, he sighed, but supposed he shouldn't have expected anything else. It was only when Dumbledore came through the door mere moments after that Harry knew the mirror was some sort of test and touching it had been a grave mistake. The floaters rumbled. A despicable ploy to play on a child. This displeases us greatly. Tread lightly, child.

"Ah, so you found it," Dumbledore said from behind him, "The Mirror of Erised". Harry didn't dare move. He looked back once, trying his best to look like a grief stricken orphan.

"What do you see, my boy," Dumbledore questioned as he padded over, gaudy purple robes scraping softly against the stone floor of the empty classroom.

"I see my parents," Harry replied, voice trembling just for effect. It wasn't totally a lie, but Dumbledore didn't deserve to know about the others. The dead deserved to rest. Dumbledore nodded sagely and Harry knew he'd passed the test. As long as he was still the vulnerable orphan pining away for his parents, he was everything Dumbledore expected him to be.

"Do you see yours?" Harry continued before he could stop himself, "Do you see people you've lost too? Is that what this mirror does?"

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed minutely, but his posture remained relaxed. "No," he replied, an obvious lie, "I see myself holding a pair of woolly socks." It might have been a half-lie, then. Socks weren't too far fetched where the headmaster was concerned. "No, this mirror displays the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. Most would see fame, glory, even love. Many have gone mad staring into its depths. Few would see what you do. You long for the family you never had and that innocent love is a reflection of the purity of your heart." Harry thought he might be sick. He tried to act crestfallen when Dumbledore said the mirror would be moved and found that truthfully, he probably was a bit disappointed. After Dumbledore swept from the room thinking he'd made a breakthrough with the boy who would be his tool, Harry sat for a few moments more before tearing his eyes away from the image of the boy in the mirror reunited with his parents in heaven.

No, it wasn't the mirror entirely that caused his withdrawal from his friends. It was the breakthrough he had with Snape and the prophecy. The floaters looked it over in his head over and over again, but found that Snape had overheard an incomplete prophecy and nothing could be done until he knew the whole thing. Harry spent a lot of time alone in the library looking up everything he could find on prophecies and mulling over his own feelings about Snape. He'd forgiven him in his heart because Snape's love for his mother was genuine, but his head was having a harder time agreeing with his heart. Snape couldn't have known that Voldemort would come after them, but his involvement in his parents' deaths was undeniable. Logically, Harry should hate him. Even so, Snape was his best ally at the moment and he decided to leave well enough alone. These feelings didn't have to be resolved overnight. Shaking himself, Harry gathered his cloak tighter around himself and stomped after Draco and Fang. He could see the malignant magical signature before they saw him, a cloaked figure drinking hungrily from a dead unicorn. The creature's energy stream was being bolstered and gleamed silver from the unicorn blood, but also absorbed corruption that whipped the magic into a maddening whirlwind.

"Run!" Malfoy shrieked in a decidedly cowardly manner, dragging Fang along with him. Harry bolted, but fought with the pain that exploded from his scar as the creature looked up at him. He ran a few yards, but stumbled and fell, vision too red and hazy from the pain. Acting on adrenaline, Harry flipped over and crawled backwards, kicking as he went, planting a shoe in the creature's face. The creature stood from where it was on the floor and prepared to maul him when it was again kicked in the face by a hoof connected to a centaur. Harry wasn't sure if he should be surprised anymore. Centaurs existed and suddenly, every crazy thing the Greeks ever wrote down started making more sense.

"Come, Mr. Potter," the centaur said as he hauled Harry up from the floor and onto his back, "You are safe now. You are with Firenze."

"Friends?" Harry was still bewildered.

"No," Firenze chuckled, curly hair heaving on his bare chest, "Firenze is my name, though you may consider me a friend." Firenze reminded Harry a lot of Draco. Really pretty, white blond hair and blue eyes. If he had a death wish, he might ask Draco if he had centaur in his blood

"These woods are dangerous at night," Firenze said as he trotted, "especially for you, Mr. Potter."

"Thanks for saving me," Harry replied, clutching the hair on Firenze's back to avoid falling off, "I thought centaurs didn't like people."

"That would be true for most of us, but not for me." Firenze's eye lost a little bit of its sparkle. "I'm an anomaly among my people, Mr. Potter. I suspect after tonight I shall have to sleep alone under the stars for a few moons."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, shocked, "You didn't have to do this, Firenze."

"Nonsense. Voldemort is a threat to us all. The others will realize that soon enough."

Harry was deposited with Hagrid, who thanked Firenze profusely before sending him off with his best rock cakes. Hermione and Neville were sent to bed much earlier, leaving Draco and Harry to walk back to the castle together.

"What was that back there?" Draco asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

"You heard Hagrid, probably a wolf or something."

"Bollocks, Potter. You know wolves don't run around killing unicorns."

"As sharp as usual, Malfoy. No, it wasn't a wolf."

"Well?" Malfoy asked expectantly, eyebrows arching into his hairline, "Don't keep me waiting. What is it?"

"I never took you for a whiner, Draco."

"Malfoys do not whine. Just tell me."

"It was a wizard whose name rhymes with Moldywart."

"I'm serious, Harry, if you know-"

"It was Voldemort, Draco," Harry said quietly. Malfoy's mouth snapped shut and he stopped walking.

"You're serious. Your scar?" Harry nodded.

"He's weak. Firenze told me that unicorn blood will keep you alive, but give you a curse that nobody's ever lived long enough to talk about. He's desperate."

"He's back then? Shouldn't you tell Dumbledore?"

"No," Harry bit back, "I can't trust him."

"So you've said, but if he's really this close to school, you don't have much of a choice. You know he'll go after the stone."

"I can't. I'd take talking to Voldemort over asking Dumbledore for help." They reached the staircases and had to part ways.

Just as Harry turned to leave, Draco grabbed his arm. "You are taking me with you whenever you decide to do...whatever it is you're planning."

"Of course," was Harry's simple reply.

Everything came to a head after exams when they finally got Hagrid to reveal how to get past Fluffy. Hermione was immediately whipped into a frenzy, bushy hair getting bushier with every excited word she spoke. Ron joined in on her tirade and soon, Harry was tearing down transfiguration hallway with them, bursting through McGonagall's door and frightening the old woman into considering an early retirement.

"We know about the Philosopher's Stone!" McGonagall dropped an armful of books into an ungraceful heap onto the floor.

"What on Earth-"

"Someone's trying to steal the stone," Hermione cut in, "and we think it's Professor Snape."

"Nonsense, Granger," McGonagall said, finally finding her words again, "The Professor is one of the people protecting the stone."

"I agree, Professor," Harry said, eyeing Hermione reproachfully, "but we think you need to get the headmaster to check on the stone and rethink your security. We have reason to believe that someone in the school is trying to get the stone and manipulated Hagrid into giving up details about it."

"We have had no reason to believe that the stone is in any danger here, Mr. Potter," she clucked, "There is no place safer than Hogwarts."

"Oh come on Professor," Ron said, leaning on her desk, "If we could figure out the stone was here, anybody could." Harry looked openly surprised that this mildly intelligent thought had come from Ron Weasley. McGonagall was equally shocked and, upon recovering, reconsidered her earlier statement.

"If the stone is in danger, there is nothing we can do at the moment. Dumbledore has been called away to an urgent ministry matter in London and will be back tomorrow to deal with your concerns."

A bit later in the defense corridor, Hermione fumed. "Why didn't she listen to us? It's like she doesn't take us seriously!"

Harry spun on his heel. "We're eleven 'mione, we're not exactly authorities on private security. Besides, the stone's been safe so far, one day won't make any difference."

"Dumbledore's away, mate," Ron interjected, "That doesn't sound fishy to you?" Both Harry and Hermione stopped to stare at their friend in wonder.

"Full of surprises today are you?" Harry said, a lopsided grin spreading on his face. "Fine, but I have revision with Quirrell right now. How about we stake out the third floor corridor tonight?"

"Steak out? Mmm I'm in," Ron said, rubbing his stomach.

"And the moment is gone," Hermione said, dragging Ron away. "Have fun Harry," she called over her shoulder. Harry raked a hand through his hair again in exasperation and continued to the Defense classroom where Quirrell had been conducting their weekly "revision" since Halloween. Upon opening the door, however, he found Quirrell slumped over his desk, muttering nonsensically to himself. As he got closer, it was apparent that his professor was asleep, but delirious with fever.

"Professor!" he called, grabbing his shoulders. Harry tried to rouse him several times, but found that he would not wake. Just as he was about to get help, Quirrell spoke. His voice was all wrong, however, and rasped unnaturally from his mouth as if it didn't fit all the way into Quirrell's body. Harry's scar burned and festered, bringing Harry to his knees.

"The blood of muggles will spill on the floor at my feet and the dark shall overtake all," he slurred. The ramblings continued along those lines and stopped. Quirrell's mouth floundered and the voice that was not his continued as if in an argument with itself.

"No...killing muggles makes no sense...too many of them...magical inbreeding...no, blood...blood is the answer...the dark will prevail...no, not like this...the stone, yes the stone-" Quirrell's head snapped up and looked around the classroom. Harry had already bolted out the door at the mention of the stone. He caught his breath and walked back into the classroom as if he'd never entered in the first place.

"Ah, Harry," Quirrell said from his desk. The professor looked pale, but otherwise no different than usual. Harry fought to keep his heart rate down and his breathing even. He could last an hour with Quirrell despite his anxiety if he remained calm.

"Unfortunately," Quirrell continued, "I am occupied with something Dumbledore asked me to do tonight." The stutter was quite absent from his speech, but his anxiety was somehow amplified by his shaking hands and sweaty brow.

"I understand, Professor," Harry said, evenly, "Are you well?" Quirrel was silent for a time and Harry struggled to keep himself from running. As Harry weighed killing himself against bashing Quirrell in the head with a cauldron, Quirrell sighed and wiped his brow on his sleeve.

"I am w-well, P-potter. H-however, s-something does w-w-weigh on my mind this evening. Y-you would ease my anxieties by s-staying safe. Y-y-ou will stay out of t-t-trouble, won't you?"

"Of course, professor," Harry said, acting confused. Quirrell dismissed him and Harry waited until he made it out the door and out into the staircases before allowing his legs to kick into a maddening sprint down into the dungeons. Harry reached Snape's door and raised a hand to knock, but hesitated. If it really was Voldemort in Quirrell's head, Snape...Harry didn't want to put Snape in an uncomfortable position. If he was a spy, then it could ruin his cover. If he really was on Voldemort's side, then...Harry didn't want to finish that thought. No Snape, then. He veered off towards the Slytherin common room and grabbed the nearest Slytherin he could find.

"Please, could you get Draco out of there for me?" Harry was desperate. The gorrilla-like boy whose name he could not recall wrinkled his nose.

"What do you want with him, Potter," he spat. Ah yes, Goyle. Sensing that he wouldn't get Goyle to budge any time soon, Harry dove into his simple mind and planted the memory that Draco had ordered him to fetch him when Harry arrived.

"Tell Draco I'm here, Goyle," Harry said again. Goyle looked confused and flipped Harry off before opening the passage and stepping in. Draco came out moments after, clearly bemused.

"Blimey, what did you do to Goyle?" Draco chuckled and went on about how Goyle couldn't sort out the words in his own head about meeting Harry in the corridor until he got a proper look at Harry, who was hunched over, panting and clutching his forehead.

"It's happened? He's going after the stone?" Draco was alert and serious as anything in an instant.

"Not yet," Harry said, still catching his breath, "We have to get Ron and Hermione." Together, they set off at a quick pace for the Gryffindor common room, heels clicking against the stone floors. Harry turned to a breathless Draco and asked, "What do you know about Quirrell? How did he get his job?"

"Not much," Draco replied, "only that he used to be a Muggle Studies teacher and took a year of to get some life experience. It's funny, though. He got back and turned into a bloody Defense prodigy." Harry cursed, smacking himself in the head.

"Ugh I should have known," he hissed, "And I liked him too."

"What are you going on about, Potter?"

"I'll explain later. For now, we need to get my cloak and Ron and Hermione. Come on."

A few minutes later, Ron, Hermione, and Harry emerged from the Gryffindor common room under the invisibility cloak and grabbed Malfoy, who'd been leaning casually against the wall around the corner. They got him under and quiet just in time to avoid McGonagall making her rounds of the halls.

"Are you sure we're not going to get caught?" Hermione lowered her voice, clearly anxious.

"What's wrong with you? It's not the first time you've been caught this year. The worst is over," Draco mocked.

"She had to put a body bind on Neville," Ron explained.

"It's not my fault he tried to keep us from leaving," Hermione huffed, "Honestly, curfew was only just about to start. I don't see why he had to play hero."

"Maybe Potter's rubbing off on him." Harry punched Draco in the arm. The four of them barely fitting under the cloak, they scuttled to the third floor corridor as quietly as they could. Harry discreetly cast a silencing and disillusionment charm around them just to be safe. Entering the room with the trap door, Harry was dismayed to find Fluffy fast asleep.

"Bollocks," he cursed as the cloak was blown clear off of them by the massive dog's snores.

"Snape's been here, then," Hermione whispered.

"You think my godfather's been here? Fat chance, Granger. Stop pinning this on him," Draco snapped.

"He's your godfather? No wonder he's such a git. Must run in the family," Ron scoffed.

"It doesn't work that way, Ronald." Hermione huffed.

"You would know how blood works, mudblood-"

"Hey!" Harry shouted in warning to all of them, "If we're going to do this, I need all of you to stop being prats. No foul language," he said waggling a finger at Draco, "and no more of this Snape nonsense," he finished, pointing to Hermione.

"But Harry-" they all started, only to be cut off by Harry.

"Enough! It's not Snape, it's Quirrell, now shut up!" a gust of wind whipped through the room in time with Harry's rage and frustration.

"Uh, Harry, I think you might want to calm down, mate," Ron said, taking a few steps back.

"Yeah, Potter, I think I agree with Ron on this one," Draco said at Ron's side.

"What are you two on about?" Hermione said, hands on her hips, "Since when do you agree with each other?" Both cowards whimpered slightly and pointed behind Hermione and Harry. Hermione turned slowly and let out a curious squeaking sound before backing up to where Draco stood and latching on tightly to his robes. Harry arched an eyebrow and turned to find that the harp that kept Fluffy at bay had toppled over due to his outburst and the dog had awoken and stood growling menacingly at him. In no mood to waste any more time, Harry pulled out his wand and in a single motion, cast a shrinking charm on the three headed dog. No sooner had reducio flown from his lips than the dog had shrunk to the size of a full grown rottweiler. Undeterred, the dog growled again at the four children and prepared to maul them. Still angry, Harry muttered a mild stunner and the dog toppled over, sleeping soundly. After all, it wouldn't do to kill one of Hagrid's pets.

"Merlin, remind me not to get on your bad side," Draco said, relief coloring his voice. Suddenly getting along, the four of them jumped down through the trapdoor and landed in a sea of plants. Draco, who'd gotten at least decent marks in herbology, knew right away to cast an incendio to burn the plants away. Ron, who'd gotten less than stellar marks, lay writhing on the floor thinking himself dead as the others picked themselves up.

"Ronald, honestly," Hermione said, slapping him lightly to sober him up, "if you'd paid attention in class you'd know that devil's snare hates exposure to light. Even Malfoy knew that."

"I dunno, Granger," Draco said, winking at Ron, "I just figured plants burned and got it on a fluke." Hermione, much to Harry's amusement, looked livid.

"I guess it's safe to assume that each professor was in charge of rigging up a room to be a crazy death trap," Harry sighed, plucking a singed vine from Hermione's hair, "The troll from Halloween was probably Quirrell's part in all this. He probably let it out on purpose to distract us."

"How did you know it was Quirrell?" Draco asked. Harry told him about his encounter earlier that day. He left out the bit about the mumbling and the muggle killing fantasies, but he told them enough.

"Blimey, so V-V-you-know-who is living inside his head?" Ron looked as if he were trying to imagine what that might be like and rubbed his head unconsciously.

"I honestly don't know for sure, but something wasn't right with him," Harry replied, shaking his head. They continued into the next room to find that it was full of winged keys. A broom floated in the middle of the room and it was soon apparent that one of them would have to fly and catch the key to the next door.

"Right, well, step aside, Potter," Draco said, seizing the broom, "this one's mine."

"Do you even know which key it is?" Harry crossed his arms, looking pointedly to Draco.

"No, but Granger does." Hermione huffed indignantly and pointed at a key that lagged behind the others and fluttered along lamely on broken wings. Draco took off in pursuit of the key, but didn't anticipate the ferocity of the other keys. They distorted his vision and planted tiny cuts on his hands and face. Determined, Draco reached out recklessly with both hands, one to bat away the other keys and the other to catch the key. Once his fingers closed around it, however, he lost control of the broom and landed badly on his ankle.

"Draco!" the others yelped, rushing over to him.

"I think it's broken," Draco said from the floor, "but I got the key." He grinned sheepishly up at them.

"Draco, you're going to have to stay here," Hermione said, tearing off some of her robes to make a makeshift brace.

"Here, let me," Harry offered, transfiguring the cloth into a rudimentary splint. He pointed his wand at Draco's foot and muttered a numbing curse discreetly.

"I'll try to make it back from here," Draco said, wobbling to his feet. The numbing curse clearly working, he didn't seem to be in very much pain. It would be slow work, but Harry knew Draco had to go back. Before they parted, Draco shouted, "You lot better not die on me!"

The next room was a chessboard of all things. Harry was about to bombarda the whole setup before Ron stepped in to play the game out. On the best of days, Ron was a pretty decent player. It was just about the only thing he was good at. His playing style, however, sacrificed a lot of pieces. Before he knew what he was doing, Ron realised he had to sacrifice a knight, the piece he happened to be sitting on. It won the game, but Ron lay on the floor unconscious with Hermione crying over him. Harry pressed a finger to his neck, but checked his life force just to be sure.

"He's only knocked out," Harry said reassuringly, "He'll probably have a headache later, but he'll be okay." Hermione nodded at him, wiping away tears.

The final room was full of potions and Hermione had no trouble solving the silly riddle. Really, the whole room reeked of Snape and potion nerdyness. Snape needed better riddles. When it became apparent that only one person would be allowed to pass through the black flames to reach the stone, Harry ordered Hermione to turn back. Hermione growled, but acquiesced, snapping at him to "stay alive or be flayed". Harry found himself about to confront Voldemort alone. Really, it was better this way since fewer people got hurt and better still, there were fewer people around to discover his secrets. The floaters rumbled in his head. The one you call Voldemort is a soul without a body. We regret that we could not see past the stuttering fool's disguise.

"I heard him talking to himself, Voldemort, I mean. I'm curious. Is there a way he can be saved? The madness seemed to be leaving Voldemort."

It is...a possibility. However, it is inadvisable that you attempt to contact his soul. It is dangerous unless you anchor him to something. Otherwise, he will do what he did to the fool and take over your mind. Souls are like liquids. Once one fills a vessel, it merges with whatever is already in that vessel.

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched into a smile. He pulled out a tiny aluminum soldier, one of Dudley's discarded toys. Clutching it tightly in hand, he walked through the flames. When he emerged, he found Quirrell standing there in front of the Mirror of Erised.

"Hello, Professor," Harry said, "I'm sorry I didn't take your advice."

"Harry," Quirrell said, looking tired and crestfallen, "I told you to stay out of trouble. You do not underst-"

"Oh I know that Voldemort's in your head, Professor. Let me talk to him." Quirrell looked conflicted and then confused as if he were having a private conversation with himself.

"But master, you are not strong enough." The horrible hissing voice from earlier that evening rasped out from somewhere.

"I have strength enough for this." As Harry watched, horrified, Quirrell unwrapped his turban to reveal the face of Voldemort plastered onto the back of his scalp. Harry's scar burned as if a scalpel forged in fiendfyre had dug its way into his head, coloring his world with pain and fury.

"How on Earth did you get that past Dumbledore. Oh wait, the old codger probably knew." Harry muttered curses to himself. Voldemort's face looked puzzled.

"You do not trust the old man?" The madness for now was clear from his eyes, red slits still visibly sane.

"No, he left me in an abusive household with blocks on my magical pool and pushed me to come looking for this blasted stone," Harry spat, "So no, I don't particularly like him."

"That is interesting. You do not want the stone for yourself?"

"No, according to that mirror, my most desperate desire is to die, not live forever. Oh look, the stupid stone's appeared in my pocket. Funny, since I don't want it."

"You want to die? Whatever for? Youth is a precious thing, boy. You could give the stone to me and I can take down Dumbledore for you." At this, Harry hesitated, not wanting to reveal more about himself.

"Eternal life matter that much to you, does it? You're not getting the stone the way you are. Something happened, right? There's something wrong with you. I can fix you," he pleaded. Something in Voldemort snapped and madness suddenly colored his eyes.

"The stone is mine. Give it to me!" Quirrell whipped the right way around and lurched towards Harry. Quirrell was still conscious, but losing the battle against Voldemort for control of his body. His limbs were lost to the other soul invading his body.

"Harry, listen to me," he said, "I can't fight him anymore. Touch me! Your hands will burn us away." Quirrell stopped and screamed in agony as Voldemort shouted, "Shut up you fool! You have undone us both." Harry scrambled to his feet and grabbed both of Quirrell's hands. They crumbled to dust at his touch. Harry moved on to Voldemort's face. Soon, Quirinus Quirrell was reduced to a pile of ash on the floor. Quirrell's face looked more serene than Harry had ever seen it.

"Harry," Quirrell beckoned with a feeble voice, "He was sane once. He was sane. I met him and he was glorious even as a spirit. I can see the spirits now, backing you. You have so much talent. You must fix him, please, Harry. Fix him." With those words, Quirrell's face disintegrated. The violent spirit of Voldemort exploded from his remains in a cloud of dust. Working quickly, he held his toy soldier in front of his face and tethered Voldemort's soul to it. At once, Voldemort was dormant, having no life force to feed on and relying only on Harry's power as a necromancer to stay in the living world. Looking down at the hateful red stone that had given him so much grief this last year, Harry cast his most powerful blasting curse at it and watched it blow up into a million stupid red pieces before promptly passing out on the floor.

When he woke, he was in the hospital wing and Dumbledore was watching him from the foot of his bed.

"You've rejoined us, Mr. Potter. Excellent!" Dumbledore was all twinkles and gaudy colors. Harry felt nausea unassociated with his injuries.

"Sir, what happened," he asked, sitting up, "Where are the others? Are they alright? Draco and Ron are hurt. Where are they?"

"Hush, my boy," Dumbledore said, obviously pleased at Harry's concern, "Everyone is alright but you. You gave us quite a scare. It's been three days since your collapse. Naturally, the whole school knows." Dumbledore gave another speech about love and all that nonsense before sweeping out of the room.

"Alas, earwax," he'd said in parting. Harry pulled a face. No one who loved lemon drops, but hated earwax jelly beans could be trusted. Harry looked around and was relieved to find his wand, glasses, and toy soldier/soul of Voldemort on the bedside table piled on top of his neatly folded robes. Madame Pomfrey scuttled out from her office and fussed over him.

"We were so worried about you, Mr. Potter," she tutted, "Oh, the state you were in. How dare you make an old woman worry." Harry apologized profusely, seeing her close to tears.

"Snape was here, you know," she said gravely, "He was here every day watching you, monitoring your vitals, not that I blame him. It was touch and go for a bit. I made him go back to his quarters." Finished with her ministrations, she picked up her skirts and bustled away.

Later on, Harry found himself surrounded by weeping girls. Hermione blubbered on one side of his bed about not dying and Pansy blubbered something about Draco not dying and both blubbered on and on about being so scared. Draco and Ron looked on looking suspiciously morose.

"What's wrong with all of you? You lot aren't still concussed are you?" Harry extricated himself delicately from the girls' arms.

"You should have seen yourself, mate," Ron said quietly.

"Yeah, mate," Draco echoed, "Your scar was pouring blood. It was more than I'd ever seen. They had to levitate you in here and spent hours pumping blood replenishing potions into you."

"I still don't see why all of you look so dead," Harry retorted, "I've had worse." Hermione blubbered something into his robes.

"I was not on my deathbed, Hermione Granger!"

Hermione, Pansy, and Ron left some time later to get to dinner. Draco hung back and walked up to Harry, hands fidgeting, looking like he wanted to say something.

"When you said you had worse," he began, "you meant your relatives, didn't you."

"Yes, what of it?"

"Well I asked father, and he said that, legally, you don't have to stay there."

"I know. Before you say anything, I really do have to stay there for at least two weeks for, er, reasons that I can't say for now, but let's just say a wizard named Moldywart has it out for me. After that, I can go where I want." Draco beamed.

"That settles it! You're staying with me for the summer. We are family after all, so we have reason to invite you to our home." The boys shook on it and parted feeling excited for the holidays.


	7. The Broken Boy Ch. 7

Harry sat in the train compartment savoring the final moments of freedom before having to go back to the Dursley's. The end of term feast had ended with Dumbledore awarding an unfair number of points to the Gryffindors and Malfoy fumed all the way to the train, clearly miffed. The part of the feast that bothered Harry, however was Dumbledore's announcement that Quirrell was the culprit behind the destruction of the stone. He never made even the slightest mention of Voldemort's return. Why cover it up? If Voldemort was really back, wouldn't it be best if the students knew and had time to prepare? Harry brooded over Dumbledore's motives all the way to the train. Between the two of them, the mood in the train car was decidedly heavy with tension. The girls interpreted their attitudes as a sign that they were already dreading their parting. Blaise sat in between Harry and Draco looking uncomfortable, tucking his elbows tightly into his sides to avoid touching the brooding duo. It took Ron snorting a jelly bean through his nose to break the tension.

Hermione's parents were nice people, perfectly plain as dentists came. Ron's mother came up to him and embraced him warmly, though they'd only met once.

"Oh goodness, Harry," she said, planting a kiss on his cheek, "I'm so sorry I didn't notice who you were when I last saw you."

"It's alright, Mrs. Weasley. Thank you for the jumper at Christmas."

"You'll get more where that one came from, dearie. It's a pity you couldn't come stay with us this summer. Ron and the twins would love to have you." Harry had considered it. In fact, Ron's family had been his first choice. The only issue was that Ron confirmed for him that Dumbledore was a frequent visitor at their home and that his family was a strong supporter of Dumbledore's agenda.

"I would have loved to," Harry said, genuinely regretful, "but I'm staying with family this summer." Again, it wasn't exactly a lie. Mrs. Weasley sent him off with a few more kisses and a pocketful of sweets, which he decided to ration.

When he saw Draco hauling his luggage from the train, Harry took out a matchbox sized suitcase and handed it to Draco. At his questioning look, he said, "I can't bring these to my relatives' house. I've shrunk everything I brought with me and sent Hedwig ahead of me to your home. Could you keep this for me until my visit?"

"Of course," Malfoy said, taking the box, "but won't you need your things? Even your wand?" Harry shook his head.

"I left there with nothing." He shrugged, saying, "No worries, Dudley's cast offs will be waiting for me when I get there."

"If you're sure," Draco said, looking worried. A pale man with white-blond hair strode over to them and placed a hand fondly around Draco's shoulder.

"Father!" Draco said excitedly, taking the man's hand.

"It is good to see you, son," he replied, smiling stoically down at Draco, "Who might this be?"

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, offering a hand. Lucius Malfoy shook it with the first two knuckles of his fingers in a refined and well-practiced movement.

"Well met, Mr, Potter. My son has told me much in his letters. We look forward to your visit in a few weeks. My wife, unfortunately, is occupied by a previous engagement. She is, however, excited to meet you."

"Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Malfoy," Harry responded, taken aback.

"Nonsense, family is a rare and precious commodity these days, after all." Lucius even showed signs of a smile.

"Boy!" Vernon's voice bellowed as they exited the platform, "You'll regret making me wait for you, freak." Harry took in his uncle's rage calmly, ignoring the spittle that landed on his cheek. The Malfoys visibly stiffened.

"You are Mr. Dursley, I presume," Lucius said, offering his hand, "I expect Harry's told you he's been invited to my home in two weeks." Vernon stared disdainfully at Lucius as if he carried a highly contagious disease.

"Yes, and we're glad to be rid of this freak. It's a pity you couldn't take him sooner. I suppose he'd be glad to be with other freaks like him." Vernon shuddered.

"Excuse me?" Lucius's eyes narrowed and his voice came out strained. His hand clenched and receded, gathering Draco closer to him and away from the muggle man. Vernon reached out and grabbed Harry roughly by the forearm, jolting him almost off his feet. Lucius's eyes snapped to Vernon's hand.

"You will contact us if there are any...problems, Mr. Potter?" Lucius said slowly. Harry nodded meekly, body quivering with a mixture of anger, fear, and shame. He allowed himself to be dragged away by his uncle, feet barely moving fast enough to catch up with him. Harry was anxious the entire car ride back. His uncle remained silent for the whole ride. They pulled up in front of the house of Privet Drive and Harry was hauled out of the car by his shirt collar.

"Go change out of those ridiculous clothes before the neighbors see you, boy," Vernon said, shoving him in through the front door. Harry lost his balance and landed on his hands and knees. He scrambled to get up and did as he was told. Immediately, Harry found himself being forced into a whirlwind of chores. Petunia was at his cupboard door with a list when he emerged and handed it to him woodenly. He settled himself into a rhythm and did as he was told, trimming the lawn, readying dinner, doing the laundry, and cleaning the rooms. Dudley, who was still recovering from the trauma of Harry's departure, watched Harry warily from behind a comic book and then kicked him in the shin for good measure. Harry took it and only hissed out in pain once before continuing with his chores. He was determined to make it through two weeks. Everything seemed business as usual until supper when he was thrown violently into the cupboard, head snapping back, hitting the wall with a crack.

"No food for you, freak," his uncle said, body blocking the light from the doorway, "That is your punishment for what you did to Duddikins." Breathing hard, Harry fought the nausea building up in his chest. Vernon slammed the door and the darkness overtook him. Thankful for the isolation, Harry lay down on his little cot, only slightly disturbed to find that his ankles stuck over the sides where once he'd fit comfortably on it, and fell into his private world with the floaters pulling him from his body. He relaxed and bided his time, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his stomach and the headache blooming where he'd struck the wall. The next morning, Petunia unlocked his door and handed him an apple, a package of digestive biscuits, some water, and another list before walking away. Harry took the food and bolted to the downstairs bathroom. He ate as he took care of his toiletry needs and prepared to do the day's work. This routine went largely unchanged and Harry supposed he was grateful. While he could feel his body suffering, he thought it more important that his uncle had decided not to beat him.

While doing his chores, Harry had some time to look closer at the wards and found it easily, knowing now what to look for. The energy signature that he now knew to be his mother's was subtle and thin, connecting Harry's life force to Petunia. The bond looked tenuous at the most, bolstered only by another energy signature familiar to him, but escaping his memory. The old one. The floaters sounded angry in his head. So it had been Dumbledore who'd forcibly tied his mother's protection to the Dursleys. The more he looked, the more it seemed that the original blood ritual his mother had completed was tied only to Harry's life force until someone anchored it to Petunia and her accursed house. There was no stupid ward. The only thing being recharged by his presence at Privet Drive was a charm that Dumbledore cast to keep him prisoner. Try as he might, however, the charm would not be undone no matter how many times he attempted to unravel it. It is old magic, forbidden magic, the floaters grumbled, It may only broken under specific circumstances. Until this place is no longer your home, you may not undo it. Harry couldn't break it or Dumbledore would know his charm had broken and then more trouble would come. Damn.

Everything changed when the house elf, Dobby, showed up unexpectedly as he was preparing for a dinner party. He'd never seen anything that looked quite like the disheveled pink thing that showed up in Petunia's kitchen, but didn't stop to think before knocking the elf out with a wandless stunner, disillusioning him in the same breath. When no ministry letters came, Harry let out a tense breath. He'd surmised earlier that the Trace that alerted the ministry to underage spell use was attached to his wand, rather than his person. Since his wand was safely tucked away with the Malfoy's, his wandless magic could go undetected. The dinner party went off as planned without a hitch and Harry was rewarded with a plate of leftovers. Retreating to his cupboard with his prize and a sleeping elf, he ate and waited for Vernon to lock the cupboard. As he heard the characteristic click, Harry revived the elf.

"Mr. Potter performed magic around muggles!" The elf squealed, causing Harry to jump and throw up a silencing charm.

"Shhh be quiet or I'll be in serious trouble," Harry said urgently, "It's okay. My wand isn't here. The ministry can't track anything without my wand."

"Harry Potter is in grave danger," the elf said, not listening, "Master Malfoy sent Dobby here to invite you to his house for the summer, but Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts. Master said that bad people are going to do something and Harry Potter is in grave danger."

"Wait, Malfoy? Did Mr. Malfoy say that this so that you could warn me?"

"No, I heard it when Master was talking to a bad man. Lady Malfoy is nice to Dobby and you are her family. The Master is dealing with bad people and they are making him do things he does not want to. Bad things. Bad things! You must not return to Hogwarts!"

"Dobby, I have to go back to school. I trust Mr. Malfoy," not exactly the truth, but he needed to calm Dobby down, "and I don't think he would do anything to hurt me." Caught between his loyalty to his master and his worry for Harry, Dobby began sobbing. Harry cursed. He was so close to leaving. The Malfoys were to send for him the next day.

"Dobby-Dobby please calm down. I'll get into trouble!" The elf looked horrified.

"Dobby has caused Harry Potter trouble. Dobby must punish himself!" Dobby at once began banging his head against the cupboard wall. Harry tried in vain to calm him and was too helpless when Vernon yanked the door open. He got one look at Dobby before the elf disappeared with a pop.

"BOY," he bellowed, "How dare you bring your freakishness into this house." He picked up Harry by his hair and dragged him out. As Petunia and Dudley slept, he took Harry to the garage and beat him bloody with a wrench and a gardening spade, just barely avoiding the spots that would kill him. Harry's glasses were shattered and he could feel ribs cracking with each blow. To muffle his screams, Vernon sealed his mouth shut with duct tape and cruelly snapped both of his arms at the elbows. When he finally finished, it was more damage than he'd ever endured and too much for his magical core to heal all at once. Harry couldn't even muster the strength to pull himself into his mind to escape the pain, mercifully passing out the second he was thrown back into his cupboard. The last thing he heard was Vernon hissing, "You'll never make it back to that freakish school, boy."

When he woke again, he could tell it was morning by the sound of Dudley pounding down the stairs. His eyes were swollen shut and he could only open his right eye a few millimeters. He lay in a pool of his own sweat and crusted blood. His magical core had healed his arms overnight, but the rest of him was bloody and bruised. He could feel the hairline fractures peppering his ribs and the bruises mottling every inch of skin. Not bothering to sit up, Harry looked around and found that his cupboard was open a slit, not even locked, taunting him. He felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness wash over him. After a few minutes, an idea came to him. He steeled himself and ripped the duct tape from his lips.

"Dobby," he called hoarsely. With a pop, the house elf was before him and was for once too shocked to speak.

"H-harry Potter. You are hurt very bad."

"Get Mr. Malfoy," Harry managed to say, "Please." Harry was desperate, hoping that Dobby wouldn't have a fit. Dobby, however, looked stone calm and raised his fingers slowly to snap and pop out. Before he left, however, he looked guiltily at Harry, saying.

"Dobby is sorry. Dobby knows now. Harry Potter is not safe here. Dobby will get you out. Do not die, Harry Potter." Dobby popped away and Harry held onto hope that he would get out of this somehow. A few hours passed and Harry was in and out of consciousness, fighting hunger and pain assaulting him in every part of his body. Thinking about the wards, he wondered how Dumbledore's charm worked at all. He'd never thought of this house as his home, though with spells that old, he wasn't surprised the criteria was a bit loose. A prison, then. That's what this house meant to him. He shut his eyes, wondering if he would die this time. The one upside he could see to that was that he would be free of his prison. He lay there wondering what it was like to die and through the pain, felt for the first time that he was free from the prison he called home. He snapped fully awake, however, when he heard the door being thrown open.

"What the bloody hell are you doing in my home?" Harry could hear Vernon's yells and Petunia's shrieks. Dudley could be heard stomping frantically back up the stairs. Harry tried to sit up and found himself struggling to prop himself up.

"Where is Harry Potter? What did you do to him? Tell me, you great oaf." A woman's icy voice sounded from the doorway, followed by a man's.

"Mr. Dursley, you would do well not to try me. I know he's here and I know he's hurt. I have a ministry hit wizard and an auror here with me to take you into custody. Where is Mr. Potter?" It was Lucius. They'd come for him. Harry was so relieved, he thought he might cry.

"You can't prove anything! He's not here. Bloody freak ran away!" Vernon sounded frightened out of his wits. It must have been the word "custody" that got him.

"I'm in here," Harry rasped, clawing his way off the cot. He managed to shove just his bloody hand out past the heavy, reinforced door.

"You lie, muggle-" Lucius stopped mid-sentence as he caught sight of the tiny hand, sticking out blood red against the stark whiteness of the rest of the house. It wasn't moving. Lucius thought for a horrifying moment that he might be too late. He swept into the house, Narcissa hot on his heels, ignoring Vernon's complaints. The hit wizard and the auror he'd brought along closed the door and swiftly shot ropes from their wands, restraining Vernon and Petunia. Crouching down by the staircase, Lucius and Narcissa hauled the heavy door open and found Harry sprawled on the floor, body half off of a cot that took up all the room in the tiny compartment.

"Harry. Harry, can you hear me? Narcissa, help me roll him over." Lucius's voice was calm and even gentle. Narcissa gently moved Harry's upper body while Lucius repositioned his legs.

"Mr. Malfoy," he rasped, "you're here."

"Yes, Harry," Narcissa breathed, smiling down at him, "Try not to speak. We're here. You're safe. They can't hurt you anymore."

"Is anything broken?" Lucius was cautiously trying to run diagnostic spells on Harry's body, but the list that appeared before him was too long for him to filter through right there.

"My arms...m'ribs. Arms healed last night, but...hurts." Harry was fighting for breath, ribs protesting with every breath. Nodding in understanding, Lucius muttered something and Harry could feel invisible bandages wrapping his chest. He was relieved to find that he could breathe when the work was done. "Thank you," he breathed.

"We have to move you now, Harry," Narcissa said, "If it hurts, you just tell me and I'll put you right down again." Harry nodded. Narcissa conjured a blanket around Harry and wrapped him picked him up gently. Moving hurt, but nothing that he couldn't bear. He concentrated on Narcissa's perfume and the ringlets of hair that brushed his face. The hit wizard had just disappeared with a crack, Vernon in tow, as Petunia watched from her seat at the table, stunned into silence at Harry's appearance. The auror, a dark skinned man in purple robes, briefly took in Harry's injuries and turned to Lucius.

"The wife confirmed the husband's history of abuse and we carted him off, but we're not sure if she should be taken in. Doesn't seem like she knew the boy was hurt this time," he said evenly.

"She never hit me," Harry said shakily from Narcissa's arms, "It was only my uncle. I think he hit her too." The auror nodded. "I will include that in my report."

"Thank you, Shacklebolt," Lucius said, nodding. "I trust this matter will be kept secret?"

"Of course," Shacklebolt replied, "According to investigation procedures, details will be kept from the public until the case has been resolved." Shacklebolt took another look at Harry. "Is it safe to apparate to St. Mungo's with his injuries?" He looked troubled.

"I've done the best I can to wrap his ribs," Lucius replied, looking just as perturbed, "As for the rest, I don't want to do anything until the healers can get a record of what was done to him and it's too dangerous to sedate him. It'll have to do. There are no floo networks this far into muggle territory." Shacklebolt seemed unsatisfied, but nodded his agreement. He took Harry's hand.

"You have been very brave, Mr. Potter. Bear with the pain for now. You'll be well again soon," he said, levelling Harry with his hawk-like gaze. Harry nodded, a determined look in his eye. Shacklebolt took out his wand, taking Narcissa's elbow in his free hand, and apparated them to St. Mungo's hospital. Harry felt as if he were being shoved through a straw and pain erupted all over his body, every injury being pressed and prodded as his body was disassembled and reassembled somewhere else. When it was over, he breathed hard, fighting tears. He felt himself being laid onto a padded examination table and opened his good eye to find himself in a sterile white room awash with harsh white light.

Healers were upon him in seconds, casting charms and pumping potions into him. He was stripped of Dudley's oversized clothes and the blood was gently spelled away to reveal the full extent of his injuries. His clothes were replaced with a hospital gown not unlike one found in a muggle hospital. One healer, looking decidedly grim, snapped a few pictures of every injury. Deep gashes on his back he hadn't seen or hadn't been conscious for were wrapped and immediately began to close. The bruises would take time to heal, but the pain was greatly diminished by the potions they'd given him. When everything was done, Harry was given a bowl of plain broth, which he took gratefully, sitting up in the bed he'd been moved to in a private wing of the hospital.

Shacklebolt entered with Narcissa and Lucius following closely behind. A healer sat by Harry's bed with Harry's medical records which the ministry procured from the local clinic in Little Whinging. The healer frowned at the Malfoys.

"Sorry, only family allowed," the man quipped, curly brown hair bouncing as he stood to show the out.

"Healer Smethwyck, you needn't trouble yourself. We are family," Lucius replied casually, clasping arms with the healer. Hippocrates Smethwyck looked open mouthed at him.

"Really? I don't see you listed as next of kin."

"Hippocrates, my wife is Harry's second cousin once removed. Since his guardians are unfit to care for him, we do count as his next of kin." Narcissa handed the astonished healer a piece of parchment with a magical family tree on it listing the relationship between the Potters and the Malfoys. "I had that fetched from Gringotts just now, Hippocrates."

The healer snorted, saying, "You never mentioned this at your dinner parties, Narcissa."

"Oh I never knew until my son, clever thing that he is," Narcissa said, clearly preening, "thought to look through the family genealogy records."

"Why is he under your care anyway, Smethwyck?" Lucius asked, "Not that I'm complaining, but aren't you better at treating spider bites?"

"Well my specialty is officially creature induced injuries, but since this doesn't happen too often, 'muggle' got classified as a creature and here I am."

"How do you know each other?" Harry pointed from the healer to the Malfoys.

"Smethwyck was a few years behind us in school, Harry. He's been treating our family since he was a trainee. Now that you're family, it seems you may enjoy the same privilege," Narcissa said, gently patting his knee.

"Alright then, we can list you as his primary guardians for now and defer to you for his medical decisions." Smethwyck scribbled his alterations in Harry's documents. Shacklebolt straightened his robes and cleared his throat.

"Healer Smethwyck," he prodded, "might we start the interview? I'm sure Harry needs his rest. The faster this is done, the sooner he can sleep."

"Yes, quite right," the healer said soberly before turning to look at Harry. "Harry, has this type of abuse happened before? Did your relatives beat you and regularly deprive you of food?" Healer Smethwyck knew the answers from the scans, of course, but needed to probe a bit to uncover any lasting emotional trauma and provide an official record for Shacklebolt's report. Harry answered as honestly as he could and spoke calmly even as descriptions of terrible abuse passed from his lips. The Malfoys listened, holding each other's hands, expressions cold and deadly calm. The healer retained his professional manner and thanked Harry when he finished.

"You've done a very good job, Harry. Would you like to sleep now?"

"Yes, please," Harry replied, exhaustion causing his voice to quaver. the healer moved to help Harry lie down and fluffed his pillows before tucking him in and pulling the privacy curtains around him. The adults stood and ducked out from the curtain, but stayed to talk just outside.

"He has a surprisingly good attitude about all of this," Healer Smethwyck hummed, "but I'm going to recommend that he see a mind healer." He paused to rub a hand over his face. "Merlin, what a high pain tolerance he has. We barely had to give him anything for the pain and he's got injuries most adults would cry over they hurt so bad. It's not right."

"No kidding." Harry could see the shadow of Shacklebolt's head shaking back and forth. "I apparated him with all those injuries and he didn't even cry out once."

"Nor when we bound his ribs and moved him," Narcissa added. "The obese muggle who did this deserves to be flayed and then kissed by a dementor." Her voice took on a steely tone, then. It was still the high aristocratic accent, but with an edge that could slice someone's head off in paper thin layers.

"Aye," Shacklebolt's ground out, "With this much evidence against him, he'll get at least Azkaban."

"I'll be ready for when you need me to testify," Smethwyck said with conviction.

"My son said you'd be happy to see these," Lucius said, handing Harry a pouch and his wand. The Malfoy's were taking turns sitting with Harry in St. Mungo's while he recovered. Healer Smethwyck said he'd be released in a week, but he couldn't help but feel a bit stir crazy. Harry's eyes lit up and took his things from Lucius, thanking him exuberantly. Lucius eyed him curiously, but left well enough alone.

"Yes, well, eat up. Healer Smethwyck wants you to finish your food before your next round of potions," Lucius said as he pointed his wand at the plate of food sitting on the floating tray across Harry's bed. It floated across Harry's thighs and the spoon floated up to his mouth filled with soup.

"Wicked," Harry said, taking the spoon.

"Yes, quite," Lucius said, arching an eyebrow.

"Where's Draco?" Harry spoke with Lucius between bites.

"With Severus," Lucius said, nose in a copy of the Prophet, "I've arranged for him to stay there until all this is over." Harry ducked his head and stared at his soup. Lucius looked up from his paper and sighed. "I'm sure he'd like to visit you." Harry beamed. Both their heads snapped up as Narcissa's heels could be heard clacking on the linoleum floors.

"Lucius, have you seen the paper?" Narcissa looked angry, but her voice was quiet and calm.

"Not today's, this was yesterday's. Why?" Lucius's tone turned serious. Narcissa said nothing, handing him a paper from her purse.

"Bugger," Lucius said at once, "Call a solicitor." Narcissa nodded and turned to leave, but hesitated.

"He needs to know," she whispered, "but do it gently." Lucius took up her hand and kissed it. After Narcissa was gone, Lucius sat back down by Harry's bedside.

"Harry, I have some bad news," Lucius said, cautiously.

"What's in the paper?" Harry steeled himself as Lucius set the paper down in front of him. There, on the front page, was a picture of himself in a hospital gown, laid out across the front page of the Prophet, under the headline "Outrage Over Abuse of The Boy Who Lived. Savior of the Wizarding World Abused by Muggle Relatives?". Harry blinked twice, hands shaking minutely as he grasped the newspaper and lifted it closer to his face to read the article.

"Don't bother reading that rubbish. Rita Skeeter is a dirty liar and everybody knows that." Lucius sneered, gently prying the paper out of Harry's still trembling fingers.

"How did she know about-"

"That woman is will not live to see tomorrow, Lucius." Healer Smethwyck stormed into the room looking decidedly unhinged. He stopped in front of Harry's bed, looking from Harry to the paper in Lucius's hand.

"Please tell me you didn't show my patient that blasted article," he said, exasperated, not really expecting an answer.

"He needed to know," Lucius replied dryly, "and he's taking it rather well."

"How is this making you feel, Harry?" Smethwyck looked concerned. "I know it's a lot to take in."

"I..." Harry grasped at straws, looking for the right words. "I'm pissed off." His hands were still shaking and some of the lights in the room started to flicker. Lucius's eyes widened in alarm.

"Thought so," said Smethwyck, pulling out a potion, "Here. Calming draught." Harry downed the potion and felt better, but still felt slightly like bashing someone's face in.

"That picture was missing from your file this morning and our solicitors are working on pressing charges against Skeeter." Smethwyck performed a few diagnostic spells on Harry. "Any discomfort in your ribs? Breathing better? Good. Your eyes certainly look much better. Any blurriness?"

"Nothing more than the usual nearsightedness," he lied smoothly. His vision had been corrected ages ago, but it wouldn't do to admit that when his records still read that he was legally blind. "I'll feel better once I have a restraining order against that reporter...and maybe a chance to land a fist in her face."

Smethwyck snorted. "I'll see about getting your vision corrected." Inwardly, Harry cheered at the thought of doing away with his glasses. Smethwyck put his wand away and sat on Harry's bed. "Harry, if you need to talk about this, we can get a mind healer here."

"No," Harry replied, "I'll be alright. I'm not-" He paused, looking down at his hands, "I won't pretend that I'm okay after everything that's happened, but I'm free from that prison and that's all that matters. Nothing that newspaper says about me can compare to what the Dursleys did to me."

Smethwyck nodded silently, not meeting Harry's eyes. "Then the least I can do besides advise that you talk to a mind healer anyway is have our solicitor and yours get together to present your case."

"I'll get you the details," Lucius confirmed. "Busy days to come at the ministry, then. However, you, Mr. Potter, need only worry about getting well again. Leave the legal work to us."


	8. The Broken Boy Ch. 8

Draco poked his head around the doorframe to Harry's hospital room and smiled toothily at him. Harry looked over and smiled tiredly back.  
"Harry," Draco breathed in obvious relief. He was as prim and well groomed as Harry remembered. Draco sat by his bed and actually moved to embrace him briefly. Harry was taken aback at Draco's stricken expression. He picked up Draco's trembling fingers and sandwiched them between his hands.  
"It's okay, Draco. I'm fine. Really! Hey, I'm the one in hospital. Why am I the one worrying over you?" Harry's attempts at lightening the mood only made Malfoy's eyes water suspiciously. Gulping a few times, Draco looked Harry in the face, taking in his sunken eyes and healing cuts.  
"Father wouldn't tell me how hurt you were," Draco said, voice wavering but a little despite the emotion in his usually schooled features, "but then I saw the picture in the Prophet and I lost it. It was scary, mate. You don't even know how scary it was seeing you like that." Harry knew. Skeeter chose that specific picture on purpose. The moving photograph depicted Harry, eyes wide and haunted, turning reluctantly away from the camera to bare his back, bound in gauze that was stained bloody in two slanted lines along his shoulder blades angling towards his spine. It was as if he had wings and someone had hacked them off. Those wounds were infected and would leave scars that didn't respond properly to magical healing.  
"It looked worse than it was, Draco," Harry said, gesturing to his back. "It was only a gardening spade, not a hacksaw."  
"But it was a gardening spade, Harry," Draco hissed, "What that man did to you was monstrous. Trust me, even through Rita's rubbish, I could tell that you'd been seriously wronged. You've told us some of it, but it was definitely worse than you let on. I just wish you would see that." Harry gulped, trying to swallow the painful lump in his throat.  
"I'm sorry, but it's just-I'm alive and I'm out of there. I'm trying not to brood over these things."  
"Father said they found you in a boot cupboard, Harry," Malfoy said, almost in a whisper, "Even if you're trying to get over it-and I'm not saying that's a bad thing-I think you deserve some time to be angry about it; be angry for yourself, I dunno, cry it out." Harry did allow himself to cry then, a soft, steady stream of tears that was wiped away by Draco's steady hands.  
"Blimey I didn't mean right now," Draco said, a bit uncomfortable.  
"Well you shouldn't have said such nice things to me, then. Did you practice those lines with Pansy?" Harry retorted, blowing his nose.  
"I'll have you know that under this sleek and polished exterior beats the sensitive heart of an empathetic soul," Draco replied, crossing his arms. Harry punched him in the arm for his cheek.  
"Severus is worried about you," he said, soberingly, "He practically stopped breathing when he saw the paper, hasn't slept since."  
Harry sighed, nodding once. "You should have brought him then."  
"He's just outside talking to father." Draco gestured to the doorway. Before he left, he handed Harry a bundle of letters written on a combination parchment and muggle printing paper. Since he had a few moments alone, he opened them and found pages of words of sympathy and well wishes from his friends. He read them all, even the ones from Crabbe and Goyle, who were both surprisingly coherent on paper. Ron and Hermione wrote him an essay each, which for Ron was a feat. He got a letter from Fred, George, Percy, Hagrid, Flitwick, Zabini, Seamus, Oliver, Neville, Susan, Pansy, and a few others he barely remembered talking to. His most interesting letter, however, was the one from McGonagall that was apologetic and even expressed vehement opposition to Dumbledore's choices regarding his relatives.  
Attached to the whole parcel was a note from the Malfoys' solicitor that read:

"We haven't heard anything from Dumbledore yet, but we're going to filter and test the hell out of anything he sends with your name on it. -Solicitor Lawson"

Harry arched an eyebrow and decided he liked whoever Lawson was. The door squeaked open and roused Harry from his reading. Snape entered cautiously, looking as disheveled as Draco had described.  
"Hello professor," Harry greeted, serene smile on his face.  
"H-Harry," Snape said brokenly, reaching a hand to touch Harry's face. His hands lingered on the cuts on his cheeks. "This should have healed with the potions they have here. What did that Dursley do to you?"  
"That cuts were a lot bigger when they brought me in. I'm surprised it's healed up this fast. Isn't magic wonderful?" Harry tried his best to sound cheerful. Snape wasn't having any of it.  
"I knew we should never have let you go back there. Wards be damned," he spat, "That muggle nearly killed you. I have half a mind to strangle him myself. Petunia as well. How could she do this to her own flesh and blood? This is all my fault. I knew. I knew and I couldn’t save you." Harry leaned over and grasped one of Snape’s hands which were fisted in his robes. Gently prying them open, he found that Snape had dug his nails in hard enough to draw blood.  
“Look what you’ve done to yourself,” Harry said, brow furrowed. Experimentally, he passed his hands over the crescent shaped cuts on Snape’s palms and cast a simple healing charm. He removed his hands and the skin was whole and new again. Snape saw this and closed his eyes, taking a few calming breaths.  
“Harry, you’re recovering. You shouldn’t have used magic in your state.” Snape was calmer now, thinking more of Harry’s health.  
“It wasn’t your fault, Snape,” Harry insisted, “and you know it. You’ve done nothing but help me.”  
“You should hate me,” Snape said, lowering his voice, “I got your parents killed. I condemned you to this. I wanted to hate you simply because you were so much James’s son. Why don’t you hate me, Harry?”  
Harry shrugged, flailing his hands. “I wanted to hate you, at first. You don’t hide what you think of me. Ever. When I was at the Dursley’s, they either ignored me or tricked me into thinking they wouldn’t hit me so that I was surprised when they did. I had no idea why they hated me. When we first met, you made it clear you didn’t like me and told me why. Telling me why implied that you cared and opened up the discussion for change. I don't hate you, professor. You’re, I dunno, loyal and straightforward. You’ve loved my mum all this time and the war never changed that. I guess I respect that.”  
“You’re a strange child, Harry Potter,” Snape said, sighing. Both felt an emotional knot that they’d wrestled with for months finally surrender and slowly unravel.

Harry was released at the end of the week as promised and apparated directly to Malfoy Manor, bypassing the throng of reporters waiting at St. Mungo's doors. Solicitor Lawson met them at the foyer, because the Malfoy’s had one of those.   
“You guys have a foyer?” Harry was too busy blinking owlishly at the marble floors and expensive looking chandelier above his head to even listen to the Solicitor speak. This one room was already bigger than the Dursleys’ house.  
“Yes, Harry,” an exasperated Draco said, rolling his eyes even as the corners of his mouth flicked up into an amused smile.  
“As I was saying,” Samantha Lawson said, laughing softly, “we managed to get that Skeeter woman to cough up every penny she made off of that article plus compensation for emotional distress and defamation. Harry turned to blink owlishly at her. She was dressed to kill in well tailored blue robes that complimented her grey eyes and ash blond hair perfectly.  
“Thank you, Solicitor Lawson,” he said, sticking out his hand to shake hers.  
“Nonsense,” she said, bending to take his tiny hand in her own, “It was my pleasure taking her down. Nothing better than watching that snake get taken down by the full force of the law, my dear.”  
“And the restraining order?” Narcissa asked, pulling the gloves from her well manicured fingers.  
“Oh yes, I have to go over the terms of that with you.”  
“Let us withdraw to the drawing room,” Lucius said, gesturing for the others to follow.  
“You have one of those too?” Harry’s eyes were wide as saucers again “You live here? Is this a house or a castle?" Draco rolled his eyes and pushed Harry to the drawing room, shoving him as they went.   
"It's only a manor, Harry. You've spent all year in a bloody castle," Draco drawled.  
"Well yeah, but this is your house, as in, you live here? Just the three of you?" Harry was having trouble keeping his mouth closed.  
"Don't be silly," Narcissa cooed from the doorway. "This is your home now, Harry. It's a home for four. Which wing should we put him in, darling?"  
"Oh the one next to Draco's that we usually put guests in will do until we can make another one," Lucius answered. Draco had to put a finger under Harry's chin to snap his gaping mouth shut.

The solicitor spent the morning with them, sipping tea while patiently explaining the terms of the restraining order against Ms. Skeeter.  
"This is a magically binding document that will notify you if she dares come within 100 meters of you. While the ministry can't directly track her movements, we need only a drop of your blood to activate a charm that will warn you of her presence." She pulled out a piece of parchment with the restraining order written out in florid script. Lawson offered Harry a needle, which he used to prick his right index finger, producing a drop of blood that fell onto the bottom of the parchment where one would normally pen a signature. The parchment sizzled and Harry could feel a mild burning sensation in the nail of his index finger.  
"There," Lawson said, tucking the parchment away again, "if that slimy woman tries to get anywhere near you, your fingernail will burn and you'll know she's about."  
"That sounds wonderful," Harry said, licking his bleeding finger.  
"Yes," Lucius sniffed, "we may just have to start bringing you everywhere with us for good luck. Goodness knows that woman's written enough about us."  
"Oh that's a wonderful idea, dear," Narcissa added, pecking Lucius lightly on the cheek. "We'd have a tactful excuse to ban her from the charity ball this year!" Harry could feel Draco rolling his eyes at his parents' antics.  
Later on, as Harry sat with Draco in his new room on his new bed, Dobby popped in and nearly bowled Harry over.   
"Dobby is so glad that Harry Potter is safe," he blubbered, mucus and tears getting all over Harry's shirt. Harry began to wonder if he would find his life's calling as a handkerchief. Ten pounds an hour for a shoulder to cry on.   
"Dobby, what are you on about? You're being a bother," Malfoy said as he scowled at Dobby's display. Dobby backed away and hastily dabbed at his face with his pillowcase dress. He looked ready to give himself a whallop and sported bruises that were of his own making.  
"Dobby, please don't be upset," Harry said, kneeling to pat the elf on the head, "You saved me by getting Mr. Malfoy for me."  
"But Dobby is the one who is getting you in trouble with the fat man," Dobby wailed.  
"No, Dobby, it was bound to happen at some point or another," Harry said consolingly, "The point is, you saved my life."  
“Dobby, father already said he wasn’t cross with you,” Draco said from his seat on the bed, “Don’t punish yourself any further. That’s an order. Go back down into the kitchens and get yourself a biscuit.” Dobby nodded, still weepy, and disappeared with a pop.  
“That one’s mental. Mother’s always particularly gentle with him, which makes father all the more cross,” Draco grumbled out, tossing a magazine at Harry’s face. “Which team do you think will be making it to finals this year?”  
“Finals for what?” Harry was absently digging through his trunk, which he’d unshrunk and placed at the foot of the bed. Draco blinked at his slowly, a horrified expression on his face.  
“You’ve never heard of the Quidditch World Cup?” He was scandalized. Harry found himself immediately swallowed up in quidditch memorabilia and team statistics. When Draco was done regurgitating quidditch information all over Harry, he eyed the pile of clothes Harry’d pulled from his trunk and dumped onto the bed disdainfully. Besides his school clothes, Harry had only a few of Dudley’s old clothes that he’d been wearing when he left with Hagrid all those months ago. With two fingers, Draco picked the tattered t-shirt, plaid button up, and baggy jeans before calling for Dobby. The house elf popped in with half a biscuit, looking decidedly weepy, but far from hysterics.  
“Take these things and burn them,” Draco said, wrinkling his nose, “and perhaps shred them first.”  
“It will be my pleasure, Master Draco, sir. Master Harry Potter should not wear these filthy rags," the little elf responded, taking the rags with an equally disgusted expression. It meant a great deal, coming from an elf who dressed in a pillowcase.  
“Harry, get up,” Draco said, walking out into the hall. He stopped and put his hands on his hips, shouting, “Mother! Harry needs clothes!” Before long, Narcissa’s heels could be heard clicking down the hall. Narcissa appeared at the door dressed in a completely different outfit from earlier, hair neatly pulled back in a french curl. Mother and son bore matching expressions and Harry felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end.  
“Put this on, Harry,” Narcissa said, handing him a hunting cap.  
“Where are we going?” Harry shoved the hat on, covering his hair and his scar.   
“Diagon Alley, of course.” Her eyes took on a devilish glint. Draco appeared at her side fully dressed and ready to go.  
“We’re going shopping, Potter,” he said.  
Lucius leaned cautiously in from around the doorframe.  
“I’d advise you to run, but I see it’s far too late for that,” he said. “Good day. Do remember he’s still convalescing, dear.”  
By the time the three of them were done shopping, Harry though he might fall over. Narcissa had insisted that he needed a full wardrobe complete with dress robes, casual wear, and undergarments. He was especially appalled to find her asking whether he preferred boxers or briefs. It was all he could do to insist that he was paying for everything. As he lay in bed that night in his new pajamas, however, he couldn't help but smile a bit at the Malfoys' antics. They could be cold, calculating, and even a bit cruel in public. In private, they were a family like anyone else and seemed to value family above all else. They'd included him in their home. Even if he'd been put through what seemed to be the Malfoy shopping spree induction, he could feel the image of the Dursleys, who'd starved and beaten him, fading bit by bit to be replaced by the Malfoys, who'd stayed by his sickbed when they had very little reason to, in his heart whenever he thought of what family might mean to him. They certainly weren't Molly Weasley's brand of kindness, but they were kind even if they would never admit it in public.

The trial of Vernon Dursley took place a week from when Harry was discharged from the hospital. Harry was not required to be there because he was under age and the victim in all of this. According to solicitor Lawson, Vernon was barking mad and would not answer any questions until given veritaserum and spewed his crimes under its trance. The court was scandalized and immediately moved to have him thrown in Azkaban.   
"Here's where the problems started," Lawson said, rubbing her temples as the the Malfoys and Harry listened intently around a table the drawing room. "Dumbledore of all people decided to defend Dursley by saying he'd done Harry a service by taking him in."  
"That's insane! I hope the court didn't take him seriously." Lucius rapped his knuckles irately against the wood of the table. Harry fumed inwardly, wondering what he would do if Vernon was set free. He sat very still, barely even breathing until Draco placed a comforting hand on his knee.   
"In light of Dumbledore's defense of the great oaf, Vernon was spared Azkaban, but is to be placed in a muggle prison for child abuse and neglect," Lawson concluded, taking a swig of something from a flask.  
"Muggle prison," Narcissa hissed, "He should have gotten Azkaban for the things he did."  
Lawson huffed and crossed her arms. "I arranged for him to be placed in a muggle prison for the criminally insane. I hear it's positively dreadful. With the way he's raving now, I doubt he'll ever be released. We've planted records of his arrest, of course. Your aunt was put under observation by the ministry. While she isn't guilty of hurting you, she's guilty of neglecting you. Dudley will remain with her, but she's forbidden to go anywhere near magical children including you. I do believe you've washed your hands of the whole lot, Mr. Potter."  
Harry breathed a sigh of relief, though the floaters were rumbling with discontent. A man who hurts a child is himself maddened. The very act, like killing, corrupts the soul and warps it. No institution, magical or not, will be able to purge this man of what he's done. Death would have been the greatest service to everyone involved. Harry agreed, but insisted that he could live with Vernon being locked away somewhere. As far as he was concerned, the man was dead to him, no longer family or jailer or anything at all. Perhaps it was cowardly to simply cut the Dursleys away from himself, but he felt that leaving them behind was best. His body would forever carry the marks that commemorated his time with them, but his mind need not carry the burden any longer. He felt strangely light and free, a feeling so new and overwhelming to him that his eyes welled with tears despite his best efforts to hold them back. Gentle hands he recognized to be Narcissa's led him to bed and he lay there in the dark until the tears stopped.   
Though it was the dead of night, Harry could not sleep. Pulling out the toy soldier he'd stuffed in a pocket, Harry reached out tentatively to the soul inside it. Voldemort's soul was quiet as it had been since the end of term, but Harry could feel it and examine it as if it were suspended in glass. Voldemort's soul looked as if it had been shredded to pieces and the sliver that remained within the toy soldier was tiny, barely a soul at all. Harry was horrified and continued to prod and probe the shredded, tortured thing he’d entombed in the aluminum figure. Voldemort’s soul was woven like cloth, and interwoven through it were the threads of madness colored by the corruption of the unicorn blood and crinkled in the places where the soul was torn.  
This was done voluntarily, the floaters whispered gravely. There are certain acts like killing and hurting the innocent things of the world like children or unicorns that cause a soul to tear. The more terrible the deed, the greater the tear. In the past, when magic was yet new to mankind, some would create a tear and then rip their souls apart on purpose.  
"Whatever for?" Harry asked, thoroughly horrified, "It sounds like a terrible thing to do to your own soul."  
A misguided attempt at immortality, the floaters huffed. Harry could almost imagine his long time companions cross their arms and huff indignantly. The gravest of deeds will only ever split the soul in halves. This one's been torn many times. It is a half of a many halves. The voices of the floaters echoed the last bit many times in hushed whispers, like a room of academics muttering to themselves over a new discovery.  
"You mean there are other pieces of Voldemort's soul out there somewhere? Could they be put back together?" Harry looked at the torn piece of soul doubtfully.  
It is possible, though you would have to repair the damage to this piece first and any others you might come across. The floaters fell silent. Gently, Harry reached out with his magic and tugged on the strands of Voldemort's soul. Plucking one, he twisted it and gathered the frayed ends, coaxing it straight again. The unicorn blood was as stubborn as blood on real cloth, but came out with enough effort. A few strands later and Harry was exhausted. Looking up to the clock that ticked on the nightstand by his bed, Harry could tell that it was very nearly dawn and he'd been at work for hours, though it seemed as if only minutes had passed. Groaning, Harry closed his eyes and fell asleep immediately.  
Dawn came too early for Harry and he scarcely stirred at all when Dobby came to rouse him for breakfast. It took all of Dobby's strength to strong arm him out of bed and into the bathroom. The mirror sighed woefully at his hair and said, "You'd have better luck taming pixies, I'm afraid". Harry grimaced and apologized to the mirror before making it down to the dining table.  
"Do not slouch, dear, it's unbecoming," Narcissa said, not looking up from a letter she was reading. Really, it was as if she's grown eyes on the back of her head. Harry wouldn't be surprised if that kind of thing actually happened in the wizarding world, but he'd have to check just to be sure.  
"Yes ma'am," he said, taking a seat next to Draco, who sniggered into his orange juice. Narcissa shot an approving glance Harry's way and pointed her wand at a plate piled high with his recommended foods.  
"Eat up, Harry, Smethwyck's going visit today to check up on you," Narcissa said, floating the plate in front of Harry.  
"Yes," Lucius drawled, "and Snape is expected to drop in as well. Something about potions for you."  
"Godfather's coming?" Draco asked, mid-chew.  
"Swallow your food before you speak, dear," Narcissa chirped. "Eat everything on your plate, Harry. You have a lot of catching up to do."  
"Mother, I don't think Weasley could finish all that," Draco sniggered after hastily gulping down the toast he was working on.  
"Don't wolf your food," she chided gently. She looked at Harry's plate piled up to his chest with eggs and toast and the like before adding, "but perhaps you are right. Finish two thirds, then. The house elves can take the rest." Harry mouthed a silent 'thank you' to Draco, who winked back.  
"I saw that, you cheeky monkeys," Narcissa chided in a singsong voice, eyes still buried in the letter she held delicately between her French tipped fingers.  
"How does she do that?" Harry whispered to Draco, who shrugged in response.  
"I know what you're thinking," Lucius said from the head of the table, "I've married a formidable woman." Narcissa preened.

Smethwyck was in the middle of taking the bandages off of Harry's back when Snape appeared at the fireplace in a great plume of green smoke and floo powder. He coughed once and spelled himself clean before stepping out of the fireplace.   
"Apologies," he said to Narcissa with an incline of his head, "I know how much you hate soot on your marble."  
"No harm done, Severus," Narcissa said companionably back. Snape caught sight of Harry sitting backwards on one of the chairs in the drawing room.  
"Potter," he greeted, "and you are?"  
Smethwyck wiped his hands on a flannel and stood hastily, grabbing Severus by the forearm enthusiastically.  
"Healer Hippocrates Smethwyck, sir, like the Greek healer. Delightful to meet you, Professor. I am a great admirer of your work. Since your work with the wolfsbane potion was published, my ward has been bereft of werewolf bite victims, not that I'm complaining. You're quite the celebrity around St. Mungo's, you know." Smethwyck continued along that vein, continuously pumping Snape's hand up and down. Meanwhile, Snape looked petrified and his mouth was stuck in a permanent grimace-smile that was turning slowly into a deep frown. He pulled his hand stiffly away from the over eager healer and rubbed it gingerly, saying, "That is very flattering, but might we discuss Harry? I have a few salves that might help with those wounds." He gestured weakly to the two red gashes on Harry's back.   
"Yes, quite right. Sorry." Smethwyck turned back to Harry, gently spelling away the dead skin and pus from the wounds. Snape uncorked several potions and smeared their gooey contents on to Harry's back. The wounds fizzled a little and began to change color to a healthy pink shade that more closely resembled healthy flesh. Smethwyck inspected the closing gashes and laughed, throwing his hands up.  
"Well I'll be damned. Those will still scar, but the healing time has definitely decreased significantly. You can even do away with these bandages in a few days, Harry."   
"Brilliant," Harry said, twisting around to get a glimpse at his back. Snape stowed his potions bag away, smugly raising an eyebrow. 

Snape visited more often at Malfoy manor to visit the boys and the manor took on an air of domesticity that Harry was unaccustomed to. Truly, Narcissa had tasked him with keeping them occupied and Snape took to the role as if he'd been born a nanny. Their summer was filled with games and trips out to magical tourist attractions.   
"What do you mean Stonehenge is a front for a wizarding museum?" Harry blinked stupidly at the wooden double doors that suddenly appeared in one of the archways of Stonehenge. Stepping through, they were in the immaculate lobby of a museum full of the first examples of wands, brooms, and depictions of magic on caveman art. Draco dragged him through all of his favorite exhibits, namely the ones with brooms and early snitches.  
"Yeah, mate, they used to have these birds," the blond boy chattered as they entered the snidget sanctuary, “and people used to use them in quidditch games until they became an endangered species. The whole catching bit would crush them, you see.” Harry chuckled as a snidget landed on his shoulder and nipped him on the cheek with a thin golden beak, the only recognizable bird part that stuck out prominently from its downy feathers. They beckoned for Snape to enter the magically enlarged geodesic dome that housed the magical world's most protected species. Snape groaned and looked like he wanted to disappear and melt into the surrounding carpeting. Stepping in rather unwillingly, Snape arrived just in time to see the snidgets start dancing in a double helix pattern, mimicking the way their wings rotated.  
“I love magic,” Harry muttered to himself.


	9. The Broken Boy Ch. 9

The summer went by in a whirlwind of activity, Harry's favorite being his birthday. He hadn't expected the gifts that met him at the table that morning. Malfoy had distracted him upstairs just long enough for the house elves to set up the presents and a glorious high tea.

"Are those presents?" Harry was too shocked to think.

"Yes, and they're all for you. You have many friends, Harry," Narcissa cooed, placing a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't quite an embrace, but it was close enough by Narcissa's standards.

"Go on, open mine!" Draco tossed a brightly wrapped package at him. Harry took his time opening it until Draco, frustrated that anyone would open a present as gingerly as Harry did, ripped it open for him and presented him with a wand holster made of fine leather that strapped Harry's wand securely to his forearm.

"Draco, this is wonderful," he said to his preening friend, "thank you,"

"We're having a duel as soon as you get the all clear to use magic again." Draco flashed his own wand holster at him. The pair of them enlisted Snape in helping them with their defense homework. With an adult around, the ministry Trace would not attribute the spell use around their wands to the under aged wizards.

"Speaking of Smethwyck, he asked me to pass this along to you," Lucius said, handing over an envelope. Inside was a card, which read:

As my birthday present to you, I have cleared you for magic use and light physical activity. Keep up those nutritive potions and that eating schedule and we'll see about getting some meat on those bones.

-Smethwyck

Draco read over his shoulder and whooped before engaging Harry in a jumping high-five chest bump combo, which always elicited the best groan from Snape. Harry received a few more presents from his friends including sweets from Ron and a complete set of Shakespeare's works from Hermione.

"Bloody owl almost died getting that here," Lucius muttered, practically to himself. Harry examined his pile and saw threads of a life force coming from a curious brown box and blinked.

"Is there something alive in that one?" Harry pointed at the box tied up in twine. Narcissa's eyebrows shot up and she whipped around to pick up the box.

"Oh, Severus should have said something if he was going to get you a pet. He came this morning and dropped it off for you. Said not to shake it. It better not be a puppy. I detest such things." Harry took the box from her and undid the twine. Nestled in some newspaper was a beautiful milk-white ball python asleep in a coil. The snake, disturbed by the movement of the box, opened its blue eyes and raised its head to look at Harry curiously. Harry read the note tucked next to the snake.

"Severus thinks it would be ironic for a Gryffindor to have a pet snake, does he?" Lucius scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"I'll fetch the old snake habitat from when Lucius's father used to own a python. It should be big enough for her," Narcissa said, snapping her fingers for a house elf.

"It's a he," Harry said, cradling the snake against his chest to keep it warm.

"How on earth do you know that?" Draco looked strangely leery of the python despite having been sorted into a house with a snake for a mascot.

Harry shrugged and without thinking, said, "He said so." All three Malfoys stiffened.

"Harry," Lucius said slowly, "are you saying you can understand the snake when it speaks?"

"Yes," he said, brows knitting together, "You can't?" The floaters in his head even seemed surprised by this admission. Harry, this is a rare gift that you possess. It is dark in nature and any who hear of it are immediately cautious of it. Harry's eyes widened as the panic washed over him. The rest of his body remained still as he gauged the Malfoys' reaction. Draco was the first to break, slapping him on the back.

"First dark magic, now parseltongue? Why the bloody hell did the sorting hat put you in Gryffindor?" Lucius and Narcissa seemed to look at Harry with an air of approval.

"It's no wonder you fit in with us so well, dear," Narcissa said, finger on her chin. "We'll bring you up a fine dark wizard."

"Yes, it is intriguing, isn't it? The Boy Who Lived a parselmouth. Gryffindor tendencies aside, you'll be a fine member of the Malfoy household. How would you like it if we took full custody of you?" Lucius was equally intrigued and his expression was not unlike a snake eyeing an advantageous branch. Draco looked gleefully triumphant, nodding eagerly at Harry.

"I'd like that very much," he said, heart brimming with warmth.

"Did you know You-Know-Who was a parselmouth?" Draco was petting Harry's new snake gingerly with just the tip of one finger. Harry shook his head.

"No, is that why people don't like parseltongue?"

Draco nodded his head noncommittally. "Sort of. People used to use parseltongue to cast some pretty hairy stuff I guess. Don't know too much about it. Merlin was one, so it couldn't have been all evil."

"But so was Salazar Slytherin. I bet that's why people think it's evil. It's only talking to snakes. I mean look at how cute Ladon is."

"Ladon? Like the dragon from Hercules? Harry, I think you've got it all wrong. I'm pretty sure people don't like parseltongue because snakes are creepy and parselmouths all have abominable taste in names." Harry was scandalized.

"He picked the name, not me!" At that moment, Snape burst through the door, upper lip twitching.

"If I'd known that giving you a pet snake would cause you to start talking to it and cause me another migraine, I would never have done it." Snape eyed Ladon, who was wrapped loosely around Harry's fingers. Harry saw the apprehensive look and hissed eagerly to Ladon, who hissed back and flicked out a tongue to lick Harry's cheek. Both Draco and Snape bore stricken expressions which were immensely entertaining to a boy and his snake.

"I dunno, Professor, I thought you might like what Ladon told me about you. You never told me you bred snakes."

Raising an eyebrow, Snape shot back, taking the bait. "And what does he say about me?"

Grinning impishly, Harry replied, "That you're the best mummy in the world." Draco laughed at Snape's groans and became fast friends with the little white snake, most of his queasiness dissolving into laughter. As the summer crawled to an end, Draco began whining to Harry about wanting to play quidditch. With Pansy, Blaise, and the other usual suspects away on holiday, two people hardly made a good game.

"I happen to know who might be interested in playing with us," Harry said one day after yet another game of catch the snitch.

"Who did you have in mind? Do I know him?" Draco bounced on his feet, eager to know.

"Actually, they know you quite well. I'll give you a hint. They're a pack of people who love quidditch and have enough people in their family alone to form their own team."

Draco thought for a moment and grimaced. "You're not suggesting the Weasleys, are you? Come on, Harry, you know their parents would never tolerate them being here."

Harry chuckled as stowed his broom away. "Well I can see that, but I think they would tolerate you if we went to them."

"Ugh their house is a rubbish heap," Draco replied, wrinkling his nose.

"They have a quidditch pitch," Harry goaded. Draco's earlier comment about the Weasley home was withdrawn and he bounced around the room as Harry wrote to Ron, who'd been begging Harry to visit in their letters. It took some persuasion to get the Malfoys to accompany them to the Weasleys, who showed up to retrieve them in a flying car of all things. Lucius sat stiffly as the car lurched and his face turned an interesting shade of green. The children crowding the car paid little attention to the tension in the air between their parents and busied themselves divvying each other into teams.

"Finally," Ginny squealed, her shyness gone with the prospect of playing quidditch, "Decent seekers! I'm the only one here who could play a decent seeker. Things are going to be much more interesting with you two around." Harry and Draco turned out to be more than decent and the Weasleys had to tweak their snitch to fly faster to make the games drag out a little longer.

While their children played, Molly and Arthur Weasley sat rigidly across from the last two people they ever expected to show up at their home. Conversation was awkward at first, but the wives whipped out their perspective genealogy papers and began comparing notes and remedying old errors. Lucius and Arthur sat more awkwardly still as their wives chattered excitedly to each other. The Malfoys looked as if they were trying not to insult the lace doilies peppering the furniture and the Weasleys looked as if they were trying not to show embarrassment over having so many lace doilies. It wasn't until Harry was brought up that the two couples truly started getting along.

"So everything in the paper was true, then?" Arthur knitted his fingers together as he spoke, quiet voice thick with grief.

"Unfortunately, yes," Lucius replied, "That Skeeter woman did not have to dress the facts up too drastically this time around. No one could make up what happened to him."

"I don't understand how Dumbledore could have defended that pig," Molly spat, cheeks blooming a fiery red. "I have half a mind to flay him."

"Really, Molly? I thought your family always had leanings with Dumbledore," Narcissa said, quirking an eyebrow.

"We have always looked to Dumbledore for wisdom concerning the war," Arthur said, placing a placating hand on Molly's shoulder, "but we cannot condone the defense of a man who hurt a child."

Their conversation was interrupted by someone shouting, "Oy! No wands!"

"Harry seems to get along very well with your son," Molly said, smiling wistfully out the window. "You've done so much for him. I know our families have never gotten on very well, but I wanted to thank you for treating him so well."

"Molly, it's quite alright. He's family," Narcissa said, even looking touched. Mrs. Weasley nodded, understanding that while she might have wanted desperately to take Harry in, the Malfoys were the family that had Harry's heart. It was this meeting that sparked an unconventional friendship between the Weasleys and the Malfoys, a more unconventional match than any the wizarding world had ever seen. The week before the start of term, Narcissa floo called Molly Weasley.

"Darling," she said with her head in the fireplace, "I'm telling you, the foundation that our family has supported since before Abraxas was even born is willing to sponsor the supplies you need for your children this year."

"As kind as the offer sounds, Cissy," Molly Weasley replied, "we have enough even with Ginny starting school this year."

"I know how you feel about accepting help," Narcissa chided, "and you needn't think that this is an offer made out of pity. It's a civil service subsidized by the ministry. It's what you, as a wizarding citizen, are entitled to. Besides, you'd be doing our image a favor by accepting the money. Please, dear."

"Oh only you can be both devious and kind in the same breath, Narcissa Malfoy," Molly huffed before terminating the floo call. As Molly's features faded back into the ash of the fireplace, Narcissa smiled and straightened, gently patting away nonexistent stray hairs from her head.

"Dear, that was impressive, even for you," Lucius said, leaning casually against the mantelpiece. "Don't you think you should have told her we were sponsoring them?"

"She'd never accept that, dear. Much too proud. I pulled some strings with the Wands for Wizards foundation and got them to let us sponsor the Weasleys anonymously. They'll never know." Narcissa winked at her husband.

"Did they say yes?" Draco and Harry popped their heads in from around a door frame. At Lucius's nod, the pair of them whooped and scuttled off to write to Ron.

Catching Lucius's look, Narcissa patted his shoulder gently, chiding, "Children will be children, dear. Goodness knows he's never had that."

The Malfoys' appearance at Diagon Alley with the Weasleys and a representative from Wands for Wizards, elicited only hushed whispering and concealed looks of astonishment. Harry eyed the crowd of people watching them warily and felt a little more like melting into the cobblestones with every step he took. He felt himself flexing his wand arm instinctively, probing every magical being in sight with his magic.

"Harry, what's wrong, mate?" Ron's voice pulled Harry back to reality and out of his defensive stance. They stood with Draco outside of Flourish and Blott's waiting for Ginny to finish at Madame Malkin's. Harry raked a hand through his lengthening hair, brushing it clear out of his eyes.

"Sorry," he said, "Too many people staring." Draco nodded and suggested that they enter the bookstore to take shelter from prying eyes. Entering, however, they found the entrance packed full of people clammering to get to a figure dressed in gaudy yellow robes with fake blond hair. Harry stiffened as the man gestured to him, crying, "Oh my word, it's Harry Potter!" Every head snapped around to look at him and Harry felt like bolting out the door.

"Sorry, do I know you?" Harry asked shortly. The man paid no mind to the question and shoved his way over to the three students, introducing himself as he went.

"Gilderoy Lockhart, my dear boy. You'll be happy to know that I'll be teaching you defense this year. You've heard of me, of course?" Lockhart held out a hand in greeting and Harry backed away from it, shaking his head. He persisted and grabbed Harry's wrist for a picture. "For the Prophet," he said. Alarmed, Harry kicked him in the shin. Lockhart relinquished Harry's arm with a yelp and hopped up and down on his good foot.

"Now, Harry," he said, composure breaking, "it's only a picture, just come here." Lockhart lunged for Harry's arms again. This time, Harry stepped aside and Lockhart fell face first onto the floor. Draco and Ron sat on his legs while Harry twisted his arm around and pinned it to his back at a painful angle, weighing him down with a knee to the center of his back. Harry could sense the flash about to go off on multiple cameras and he cast several subtle blasting curses that caused every camera lens to mysteriously burst into tiny shards. Harry was angry and the store began to shake, causing books to fall from shelves and loose paper to fly everywhere.

"Harry," Draco said, not daring to touch him in that state, "You have to calm down." Harry was lost to him. His blood roared in his ears and all he could think about doing was hurting something. Without thinking, he channeled his magic into Lockhart's very veins and created dozens of tiny cracks along the bones of his forearm. His magic cried to rip his bones violently apart, but before it could be done, he heard the others at the door. Whipping his head around, he could see the Weasleys peering at him with horrified expressions on their faces. He looked around him and the small crowd in the bookstore were quiet, only staring at Harry warily. Upon seeing their faces, everything stopped and he got up, wanting only to put some distance between himself and the man he wanted to maim mere seconds before. Draco and Ron were at his side at once, explaining to the adults what happened.

"That idiot tried to grab Harry! Twice!" Draco explained hastily to his father, whose stoic public face showed the smallest signs of shock.

"Yeah, mum," Ron said, with a quiver of fear running through his voice, "Harry was defending himself is all." Mr. and Mrs. Weasley said nothing, only looking from Lockhart to Harry, who was concentrating unusually hard on his own shoes.

"Harry, come here. It's alright," Mrs. Weasley beckoned. Harry walked stiffly forward and relaxed but a little as Mrs. Weasley placed a comforting arm around his shoulder. Behind him, Lockhart struggled to his feet. As he pushed himself up with his hands, his right arm snapped under his weight and he cried out.

"You! You did this to me!" He looked accusingly at Harry. At once, Narcissa and Molly were upon him.

"You, sir, assaulted a child," Narcissa said, poking sharp nail into Lockhart's chest.

"There is a room full of witnesses here," Molly threatened, cracking her knuckles.

"He broke my arm! Look at it!"

"Really," Lucius said mockingly, "a twelve year old boy took you down and broke your wrist? You tried to grab him. His response is quite natural, considering the circumstances. You must know how that sounds, Gilderoy. I'm sure you've seen the papers recently." Lockhart paled and looked behind him at the crowd that was slowly turning against him, dropping his books and turning their disgusted faces away from the scene. The fake smile was plastered on his face again as he started to do damage control.

"I'm sorry, everybody. It was a complete misunderstanding. I broke my wrist when I fell. Harry," he said, turning to face him, "those were some very cool moves. Thank you for giving me a few pointers on hand to hand combat. It's only to be expected from you, eh? I guess I'll see you at Hogwarts." Harry didn't say anything, only lifting his chin defiantly at him.

"Let's get our books and get out," Draco hissed to his mother. Narcissa smiled her special smile, full of ice and reserved only for toads, and pointedly shoved Lockhart out of the way with one finger, leading their entourage through the store. The crowd was disbanding and the reporters were giving up their chase. No pictures meant no story. Harry felt himself calm down and raked a hand through his hair to settle himself. He and his friends found a corner and pretended to graze through titles as they spoke.

"Bloody hell, mate," Ron said, a silly adrenaline-fueled grin spreading on his face.

"Yeah," Draco said, leaning against a wall, "Where did you learn that and how can you teach me?" Harry shrugged, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

"I had a lot of bullies."

"Whatever that was, it was amazing," Ron said, pretending to karate chop the air. Harry only shrugged, simultaneously feeling chuffed and scared of what he'd done. As they left the shop, Harry caught Lucius slip something into Ginny's cauldron out of the corner of his eye. His face looked stricken and terribly afraid, but relieved when the object slipped out of his hands. In another fleeting glance, Lucius turned to look pointedly at a rough looking man peering at them from an alley a few yards away. Harry didn't need to probe Lucius to know that he was being threatened. Harry shook himself and moved to catch up with Draco and Ron, occupying himself instead with anticipation for the new school year.


	10. The Broken Boy Ch. 10

Harry stretched out luxuriously in his bed in the Gryffindor dorm room, somehow glad to be back amongst the crimson curtains and bedding that smelt of mothballs. He was so caught up in his nostalgia, that he almost forgot about his little problem.

“Mr. Harry Potter, sir! Is you alive in there?” Dobby the elf squeaked from outside his curtains. Harry undid the sticking charm he’d stuck on it and poked his head through to scowl at Dobby.

“Dobby, honestly,” he whispered, “Go home to Malfoy Manor. I’m quite safe here.” Dobby, who wore an upturned bowl upon his head and clutched a mop handle in his hand as a makeshift helmet and rifle, wrung his hands and squealed in protest.

“I cannot, Harry Potter. You are not safe here. Master said so!” Harry rushed to throw up privacy charms, sushing as he waved his arms around.

“You’ll wake the lads, Dobby,” he chided gently, “I’m safe, Dobby, safer than I’ve been in all my life. Now stay quiet or go home.” Dobby looked close to tears and blue in the face trying to keep his cries in. Harry sighed.

“Alright, how about you guard me from in here and get some sleep?” Dobby perked up and scuttled into bed by Harry’s legs, cuddling the mop handle like a teddy bear. Despite Dobby’s comforting presence, Harry slept fitfully as anguished cries pervaded his dreams. He woke the next morning to the sound of a shrill war cry. In a knee jerk reaction, Harry threw both his arms out and wrapped his magic around the two figures grappling on his bed, picking them up and slamming them both against the wall across from his bed. Harry could hear something snap and cut off the spell in alarm. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Harry rushed over to Ron and Dobby sprawled on the floor. Dean, Seamus, and Neville tumbled from their own beds from the commotion.

“Ugh remind me never to wake you up again, Harry,” Ron said as Neville helped him sit up.

“Sorry! Sorry! Are you alright? I heard something snap.” Harry grabbed his friend’s head and twisted it around, looking for injury. Finding none, he rushed to Dobby, who sat up with Dean’s help, head wobbling around in dazed confusion. Ron groaned and pulled out the broken pieces of his wand that was shoved in his back pocket when he hit the wall.

“I think I found what snapped, Harry.” Ron examined his wand hanging by a thread of its core.

“Yeah, well you’re lucky it wasn’t your neck,” Seamus joked, slapping Ron on the back.

“Dobby is glad it was not his neck either,” the little elf said, toddling to his feet.

“What’s Malfoy’s elf doing here?” Dean quirked an eyebrow at Harry.

“He’s got this insane idea in his head that I’m in danger here.” Harry ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

“Dobby is sorry, Weasels. Dobby heard Harry Potter cry and thought you was attacking him.” Ron’s mouth floundered, but he decided to dismiss the elf’s mishandling of his name, instead directing his attention to Harry.

“Yeah, mate, I heard you turning and crying in your sleep. You alright?”

“I’m fine, it’s just a nightmare.” Trying to change the topic of the conversation, Harry reached out for Ron’s wand.

“It’s no use, Harry,” Neville said from his side, “You can’t fix a wand after it’s been snapped.”

“I can at least try, can’t I?” Harry held the wand and found the strands of magic that made up its core, using them to pull the broken pieces back together, down to the microscopic level. The magic, however, was difficult to grasp and slipped from his fingers like water or sunlight. Try as he might, Harry could only mend the wood. He shook his head and looked to Ron with a frustrated sigh. Ron shrugged, thinking his wand was whole again and tucked the wand away. The other boys crawled back into bed and left Harry sitting in the common room, too awake now to sleep. 

The first day of classes was interesting to say the least. Harry hoped beyond hope that the new material would be more challenging, but found repotting mandrakes and transfiguring rats into goblets hardly took a toll on his magical power reserves. After transfiguration, however, McGonagall took him aside gently and shut the door after the other students had gone. Harry schooled his features and listened calmly to what McGonagall had to say.

“Mr. Potter, I know you don’t want to hear anything more about the events of this summer, but I’d like to apologize for my inaction. As your head of house, I should have noticed something or checked up on you in the summer.” Harry felt his heart tremble, though none of his turbulent emotions showed on his face. Anger roiled within him as she spoke, but he pushed it away from himself before he responded to her.

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, professor. My...problem existed way before I was ever sorted into your house. You did everything you could.” Something about her apology bothered him and his brow furrowed. “Is it standard procedure for teachers to check up on muggle-born students?”

McGonagall fidgeted with her robes as if the temperature bothered her and Harry knew he’d found something. Minerva McGonagall didn’t fidget. 

“It is common practice for heads of house to pay muggle born students visits in secret to confirm that their magical abilities are safe from discovery. You were an exception because we thought your relatives were already familiar with magical rules.”

“I didn’t know I was a wizard until the day Hagrid came to get me. I was denied my Hogwarts letter until he came. If I’d known, maybe things would have been different.”

McGonagall looked stricken. “I didn’t know of any of this, dear boy,” she said, reaching out as if to comfort him. He allowed her gentle touch on his shoulder, but shut his eyes against her expression. He didn’t want pity, not now.

“Who told you not to perform your routine checks with me?” He asked almost in a whisper.

“Why, Dumbledore, of course.” She admitted this reluctantly and spoke with malice snaking its way into her voice. Harry was satisfied and ended the awkward encounter. He plastered a serene smile on his face.

“Thank you, professor. Honestly, I don’t blame you for anything. Good morning.” With that, he spun on his heel and walked away. Late as he was for Defence, Harry had to stop in the corridor and hide behind one of the heavy red wall hangings to give himself some time to recover from the jarring confirmation that Dumbledore was his enemy despite his hopes that his case was an oversight. The floaters in his head spoke soothingly to him.  _ It is as we said. The old one cares not for what happens to others in his grand scheme for the wizarding world. Whatever his intentions, you must be wary of one who does not care. _ Harry struck the stone wall at his side and heaved a shuddering sigh. Grief washed over him and he wished he could fly away quite free from the ugly thoughts that plagued his mind. Stepping out from his hiding spot, he found himself face to face with Lockhart, who was sneaking out of his own classroom.

“Ah! Harry! You startled me,” he yelped, hand on his heart. “Don’t worry about being late, dear boy. Tell you what, I’ll forget you were ever late if you do me a favor.”

“That is unnecessary, professor,” Harry said curtly, taking a step away from him, “I was with Professor McGonagall. She can vouch for me.”

“Ah, yes,” Lockhart said, slightly breathless, one eyebrow arching, “Anyhow, I need to attend to...er….matters. I’ll leave you in charge!” He sped off, walking heel to toe away to hide in his quarters. Harry cautiously entered the Defense classroom and was immediately hit in the face with a hyper pixie who’d been improperly fed sugar because Lockhart was under the impression that pixies ate only pixie sticks. He grabbed the disoriented little bugger, whipped out his wand, and cast a web shaped immobilus before restoring them to their cage. Harry was met with many thanks from his classmates, whose hair and clothes suffered the pixies ministrations. Several girls who were stuck upside down to the wall cried grateful tears. Again, Harry thought that a career as a handkerchief would be lucrative after all. Aside from this discouraging start to the year, things continued as they were the year before, lulling Harry into a state of lethargy that transitioned gradually into despondency. While Snape and Flitwick did their best to instruct Harry in their extra lessons together, both lacked the manic zeal that Quirrell brought to Harry’s lessons. Quirrell always cared less about what Harry could handle and instead pushed him to his limits in magical theory, if not casting. He was thinking about how much he actually missed Quirrell during one of Snape’s defence lessons. 

“Harry, pay attention,” Snape snapped, gesturing to the training dummy Harry stood in front of. “We can stop now if rictusempra is too difficult a spell for you.” Snape was being short today because of a faculty meeting gone awry due to Lockhart’s bumbling. Harry’s fingers clawed at thin air and he could feel his pupils dilating, his vision tunneling. He grew stone still, raising one arm and before either of them breathed again or blinked, the dummy was in pieces on the floor, rent quietly asunder by Harry’s roaring magic. It was exactly like what he envisioned doing to Lockhart that day in the book store. Snape was in front of him at once, furiously grasping his still outstretched hand in his own.

“Harry, that was foolish,” he growled, kneeling to examine him, “Why did you do that?”

“I’m tired of drilling these spells, that’s why,” Harry snapped, pulling his hand away. Snape snatched it back, trying to get a better look at it.

“Even so, you must do them because I say so. Never do that again!” Snape’s voice was almost a hiss.

“But why?” Harry asked, feeling as if he was burning from the inside out.

“It’s dangerous, Harry,” Snape said, more gently, “and that’s all I can say. You are yet young and the magic you just demonstrated is too much for you. Let that be as simple as it sounds for now.” Harry didn’t protest again, but he felt the same desperate, burning curling in his stomach. Things went much the same with Flitwick, who insisted that the pace they were moving at was adequate and he could not teach what Harry could not handle.

“You are still young, Harry. Let it be for now,” the little goblin squeaked, taking Harry’s hand in his. They were staring at the furniture all suspended in various angles in the cavernous room of the old castle, like pieces of shrapnel emanating from the epicenter of Harry’s outburst. Harry shut himself away during his free hours in the library. 

“Harry, this isn’t healthy,” Hermione said, “You’ve been reading nonstop for weeks. Why don’t you spend some time with us outside? Hagrid’s invited us to his hut. The books will be here when you come back.” 

The idea that Hermione of all people was trying to get him to stop reading jolted Harry out of his stupor and he dropped the heavy volume on the table as if it stung to touch it. Madame Pince looked up only briefly from her reading to raise an eyebrow at them.

“You're right. I'll...I need to go outside. Yes, that’s right.” Harry raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “Thanks, ‘mione,” he said, allowing himself to be towed away and outside to where his friends waited. The visit with Hagrid involved many crushing hugs, rock cakes, and strong tea to wash the lot down. For a few hours, the fire of urgency Harry had stoked for the first month and a half of school died down. He let these quiet, happy gatherings distract him and he could forget his troubles. On Halloween, however, the blaze of anxiety returned with full force. 

Harry stared up at the frozen body of Mrs. Norris, hung up by her tail, and suddenly, he was quite glad that he chose not to eat anything at Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party. The smell of blood dripping from the wall drifted up his nostrils and he could feel his empty stomach threatening mutiny. Flanked by Ron and Hermione, Harry had to stop them from running into a pool of water turning pink from the blood that dripped into it. What bothered him, however, was the anguished whispers retreating from the hall. He was so focused that he didn't even notice the rest of the school coming from just around the opposite corner of the Conspicuous, well used intersection to make the same gruesome discovery.

“The Chamber of Secrets? What the bloody hell is that?” Ron looked shaky, looking searchingly at Professor McGonagall. The answer came the next day when the professors, hard pressed to keep the students’ curiosity under control, explained the legend surrounding the Chamber of Secrets. 

“What a load of dragon dung,” Malfoy spat, looking up from his potions homework. He, Pansy, Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Blaise were settled quite comfortably in the abandoned girls’ lavatory hiding from Colin Creevey. His companions looked up in surprise.

“I thought you dark families lived on Slytherin legends,” Ron said, brows furrowed.

“Hardly, Weasley,” Blaise said smugly, “What Draco means is that the legend is obvious anti-Slytherin bull because there was no way he could have gotten away with mass murder.”

“He was evil!” Ron shot back, “Evil people don't care about getting caught!”

Pansy piped up and said, “He wasn't evil, only more conservative. Muggles used to kill people with magic back then. His concerns were valid, not evil.”

“Honestly Ronald, I don’t blame you for being biased because of your upbringing, but you really should think before you speak.” Hermione crossed her arms in exasperation as 

she spoke. Harry watched the argument unfold from where he was leaning against one of the stalls.

Malfoy closed his books knowing he wasn't going to get anything done and said, “Slytherin was first and foremost a teacher. He couldn't have founded this entire school if he wanted to spill magical blood and hurt children. That you would assume any of us would value senseless murder is offensive.” He looked fleetingly to Harry and snapped his eyes back to the group. Ron scrunched his face up, his eyes low and his cheeks blooming red. 

“I'm sorry,” Ron mumbled, “honest, I didn't mean anything by it.”

Draco sniffed and arched an eyebrow. “I know, Ronald, I just like watching you squirm.” Ron’s face relaxed again and the tension in the room melted seamlessly back to normal. Harry wasn't sure how he knew, but he had a strange, wary feeling about him as the study session dragged on and he knew they were being watched. Rising slowly to his feet and placing a finger to his lips, Harry took up a defensive stance, aiming his wand at a bathroom stall. The others quieted and watched Harry cautiously. With a flick of his wand, the stall door flung itself open and a ghost burst, wailing from the toilet, spraying water everywhere. Whoever it was flew too fast around the room for anyone to see and pinged off the walls. Harry looked hard at the ghost and saw strands of magic that made up the ghost’s form that moved like hair in a gusty wind. With the help of a modified body bind curse, Harry halted the movement of the strands and pinned the ghost in mid-air.

“Cripes, Potter, it’s only moaning Myrtle,” Blaise said with a chuckle, “You had me believing something was about to attack us.”

Myrtle squirmed under the hold of Harry’s curse and squealed. Harry cut off his spell and held his hands up while muttering rushed apologies to the irate spirit.

“You uncivilized oaf! Why-how did you even manage to do that to me? ME! A GHOST! Have you no respect for your elders?” Myrtle inspected herself meticulously and nailed Harry with as mean a glare as a ghost could produce. 

“I’m sorry, Myrtle. I thought you were Collin.”

“Well I guess it’s okay if it’s you, Harry. If I’m cursed by anybody, it might as well be you.” Myrtle winked at him and Harry felt as if he was chewing sand. 

 

 Harry gave up on sleep that night as he’d done for more than a few nights since he found Mrs. Norris strung up in the hall. His head pounded as the anguished hissing from that night wound through his head like barbed wire. Creeping down to the common room, he settled himself in a chair, prepared to pull himself into his mind so that the floaters could help his mind rest. It was only when he heard a sniffle coming from the window seat that he realized he wasn’t alone. Peeking behind his armchair, he spotted pink pajamas and a tuft of red hair.

“Ginny,” he whispered. “are you okay?” Ginny started and wiped hastily at her eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Harry said, getting up and placing a hand firmly on her shoulder to keep her seated, “Tell me what’s wrong.” Ginny folded and crumpled forward into his arms. 

“Harry, she’s taken it and I don’t know what to do,” she said between hiccups, “I’ve done something wrong-” With that, she dissolved again into heart wrenching sobs. Harry said nothing and held her close to him, anger welling up inside him. He probed her mind gently and saw what she was so afraid of. A diary. It was the one Lucius stuck into her cauldron. The next thing he saw was  _ Ginny  _ painting with a dead chicken’s blood on a wall. Her mind was under the influence of...something he couldn’t quite pick out. Harry retreated from her mind as quick as he’d entered, afraid of attracting the attention of whatever it was that was buried in Ginny’s thoughts. When Ginny quieted, Harry wiped her tears with a conjured kerchief and gently asked, “What happened, Ginny?”

“Millicent Bulstrode, Harry. She took my diary. I need to...I need it back. I don’t know what to do.” Ginny was about to fold again and Harry took the chance to make eye contact. He made a full assault on her mind and seized the thing that had a grip over it, shoving it in a box in his own mind. Working swiftly, he wiped the memories of what Ginny did and made her think she was only upset about losing her diary. 

“I’ll get your diary back, Gin. Why don’t you go back to sleep?” Ginny nodded stiffly, eyebrows furrowed. She mumbled a quiet thank you and shuffled up to the girls’ dormitory. When she was gone, Harry sighed and punched a pillow, burying all hopes of getting any sleep at all.  _ The thing you extricated from that girl’s mind left its mark on her.  _ The floaters were louder in his mind than usual. Harry groaned against his migraine and flopped down on the couch. 

“I know,” he muttered, “and wiping the memories should help, but she’ll have dreams for a while.”

_ Let us examine the prisoner.  _ Harry closed his eyes and pulled himself into his mind. With the floaters behind him, he let his captive go and tethered it to a leash, all the while pressuring it to relinquish its secrets. The thing writhed, hissing its displeasure. 

“Leave me or I’ll kill you,” it said, “I’ll flay your mind and leave you a vegetable.” Undeterred, Harry hissed back. “You will tell me who you are and why you’ve been hurting my friend.” The thing stopped struggling and seemed surprised.

“You can understand me?” It hissed again and it was only then that he realized they’d been speaking in parseltongue. Harry redoubled his efforts, hissing, “Who are you? Tell me, or I’ll never let you free.” The thing only laughed at him, slipping away from his grasp.

“Your occlumency skills are admirable, but I’m a step ahead of you. Come and find me in that diary your friend lost.” The creature slipped away, sapping the last of Harry’s energy. When he woke, dawn was just breaking and his head pounded as if he hadn’t slept at all. 

_ You wake,  _ the floaters rumbled gently,  _ This is fortunate. You overtaxed yourself and you are unwell.  _

Harry cursed and sat up slowly. He replayed the moment the thing slipped from his grasp over and over again, frustrated with himself and his body.

_ Fret not, for these things improve with time. The creature that escaped was older, far older than any wizard should have lived. Rest now.  _ Harry had just enough time to claw his way back into bed before the floaters knocked him out.


	11. The Broken Boy Ch. 11

 

Harry remained feeling unwell for the rest of that week, but managed to keep all of his friends in the dark but one. The study group met again in the abandoned girl’s bathroom Harry was surprised to find that the Slytherins looked as deprived of sleep as he was.

“Why do you lot look like you’ve been dragged through the Forbidden Forest?” Ron was munching on a pumpkin pasty he’d filched from lunch. The sight of it seemed to make Blaise waver on his feet.

“There may or may not be a ghost bothering us in our sleep,” Pansy said, her face buried in her bag as a makeshift pillow. 

“Is it the Bloody Baron?” Hermione asked, looking up from a large and suspiciously marked book.

“No, it’s not him,” Malfoy said with an annoyed look on his face, “or I’d have exorcised him into the next century. We’re not sure what the thing is, but everyone’s been having these weird nightmares with this green light and a lot of hissing. Last night, a bunch of first years said they ran into a green thing hissing the same thing at them over and over again.”

“I bet it has something to do with the chamber,” Hermione mumbled, almost to herself. It was then that she proposed the absolutely bonkers idea to infiltrate the Slytherin dorm with polyjuice potion of all things.

“After all, it would make sense that Slytherin built the entrance to his chamber in the Slytherin dorm room,” she said as they packed their things.

“Face it, ‘mione, you just want to take a peek at what our rooms look like,” Pansy shot back sheepishly. Draco and Harry were the last two in the room, Draco having lagged behind his friends. Harry struggled to stand without his world spinning and shrugged on his bag.

“That Granger is bonkers if she thinks she can pull off the polyjuice potion and impersonate one of us. I might suggest Crabbe or Goyle. They don’t speak very often. Might be a nice change for her.” Draco trailed off and stopped laughing when he saw that Harry wasn’t listening.

“Are you alright, mate? You look worse than I do.” Draco threw an arm around Harry’s shoulders and the sudden weight caused Harry to topple over. Draco yelped and caught his friend right before he fell, cursing frantically all the way. Harry recovered quickly with one hand clutching his bag and the other clutching Draco’s elbow.

“Ugh, sorry, mate,” he said, feigning a yawn. Draco’s hands stayed around Harry’s shoulders as if ready to catch him again.

“What was that? Do we need to go to the hospital wing? You look terrible. Are you sick?” Draco Malfoy was yammering and it was almost funny except that it wasn’t and Draco was dead serious. Harry tensed and looked away from Draco’s worried expression. 

“I’m okay, Draco, honestly,” he ground out through a weak chuckle, “Just didn’t sleep very well and stood up too quickly, is all.” Draco put his hands on his hips and examined Harry with an annoyed tilt of the head.

“Think you’re being funny, Potter? You dropped like a dead weight into my arms and I’m supposed to believe that you just ‘stood up too quickly’?” Harry tried to shrug him off with as much lightheartedness as he could muster, but Draco’s wide eyes caught his and Harry was staggered by the waves of fear rolling off of his mind. 

“You’re really shaken up about  this, aren’t you?” Harry’s voice came in little more than a whisper.

“Bloody Hell, Harry, who wouldn’t be?” Draco was still looking him up and down and Harry noticed his pale fingers were trembling. Harry hesitantly grasped Draco’s forearm to steady him.

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

“Harry, you don’t have to apologize for anything. I just want you to be straight with me, especially if you’re unwell,” Draco said, more urgently, almost pleadingly “You’re like my brother, Harry. You can trust me.” 

Harry let go of his hold on Draco to shrug his bag on and ruffled his hair, unsure of what to say. Warmth bloomed in Harry’s chest and he wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to hide away or apologize again. 

“I have a headache,” he began, “a bad one.”  
“What kind of headache?” Draco looked confused, but maintained an expectant silence.

“Er a magical kind? I think?” Harry rubbed his temples, “I wasn’t lying to you about not getting enough sleep. I haven’t slept in days. It’s just...this hissing that keeps finding me at night and it feels like it’s cutting through my head.” It killed him to omit the thing he found in Ginny’s mind, but whatever that thing was, he didn’t want it to find Draco.

“So you’ve had the same problems as the rest of us? We couldn’t sleep all of last night because of that weird hissing noise. Why can’t the others in Gryffindor tower hear it?”

“Parseltongue, remember? It’s not as loud up there as it is in the dungeons, but I think I’m just more sensitive to hissing.”

“Okay, fine, but do you know what it’s saying?”

Harry hesitated, hating himself more the more he lied, but said, “No, it’s nonsense. It’s like a crazy person talking. The words don’t make any sense.” He didn’t have the heart to tell him the murderous mumblings that plagued him at night. 

“Whatever it is,” Draco continued after a tense pause, “it’s in the Slytherin common room now.”

“As soon as Hermione’s polyjuice potion is finished, we’ll figure this out, alright?” Harry patted a tired Draco on the back as he groaned.

“What am I supposed to do then? All of us are worn out. Polyjuice will take a month to finish and that’s  _ after  _ Granger gets her hands on the ingredients.” Draco seemed to be counting something on the far wall of the bathroom, possibly the hours of sleep he could live on over a month. Harry’s eyebrow shot up and he stalked out of the room, Draco in tow.

“Where are you going?”

“Idea,” Harry called over his shoulder. Firstly, he set off to the owlry to scribble a message, which he then tied to Hedwig’s feet before sending her off. A bit later in the afternoon, after classes were finished, Harry rounded up all of his friends from Slytherin house by sending Dobby to Draco with a note.   
  


“Why did you want me to bring my pillow?” Draco stepped out from the dungeons with his silk lined down pillow in hand. Behind him, Harry was surprised to see a gaggle of heads peeking over Draco’s shoulders, including Crabbe and Goyle.

“I also said bring all of your mates, not your whole house,” Harry said, scratching his head. Draco crossed his arms over his pillow, looking smug.

“My mates are my house, Harry. We take care of our own.”

“Yeah,” Blaise interjected, shoving Goyle out of the way, “and since you’re technically a Malfoy now, some of us have decided to trust your word.”

“You lot have no qualms accepting help from a Gryffindor?” Harry was still expecting this to be an ambush of some sort. Draco watched his frightened expression with smug glee.

“Stop your yammering and tell us what your plans are, Potter,” Pansy said, shoving Crabbe over to stand next to Blaise. “Your letter mentioned sleep and I want it. Now.”

Harry threw his hands up in mock surrender and motioned for the group of tired, cranky Slytherins to follow him. The group ventured outside into the brisk Autumn air and Harry shepherded them into the sun dial garden.

“You want us to sleep here?” Draco shivered. “Look, Potter, I’m not opposed to sleeping on the grass, but I’m also not desperate enough to freeze to death.” It was Harry’s turn to grin smugly at the group. Pulling out his wand, he anchored a few warming charms to the stone columns and transfigured to grass floor into a soft, cushy material like a sofa cushion.

“Our problems had to do with something that was living in the walls, correct? No walls, no problem.” Harry threw his bag onto the squishy floor and settled down for a nap. Draco settled down next to him and soon, the small clearing was filled with Slytherins looking forward to rest. 

“Psst, Draco,” Harry whispered as the clearing filled with soft snores.

“What, Harry? I’m trying to sleep.” Harry drew Ladon from his robes and settled the little coiled up snake on Draco’s chest.

“Ladon says you’re warm and he’s going to use you to sunbathe.”

“Bloody spoiled, you are,” Draco replied, looking down cross-eyed at Ladon. The tiny snake only flicked his tongue out to rasp over the tip of Draco’s nose. Harry settled back down and was about to drift off himself when Draco spoke again.

“I’ll be honest with you, Harry,” he whispered, “Not all of Slytherin is alright with you just yet. The older ones and a few others, the ones who aren’t here, still don’t like you very much. A lot of these kids, though, think you’re one of ours.”

Harry chuckled airily. “Why? Is it because I gave Lockhart a beating?” Beside him, he could feel Draco shrug.

“Well that, and you came from hard times like a lot of the kids here. They respect you for coming out of it alive.”

“You mean because of the war?”

“Yeah. Dark families were in a bad way. Lots of parents sent to Azkaban when their kids were only babies and others put on trial. Lots of childhood tiffs just because their blood was dark. That’s why we take care of our own.”

“Well, since all of that was partly my fault, I’m glad I could at least help you guys get some sleep. Sorry about the Moldywart business.” 

Draco snorted and smacked Harry lightly in the chest. “You’ve repaid them in kind and now you have a house full of grateful people. You’re better at this politics thing than you give yourself credit.”

“I assure you, it was purely altruistic. Couldn’t stand to see you falling asleep into your soup and ruining your hair.”

“Right, yeah, you’re a saint, Potter.” The two of them drifted off this way until dinner and the school was treated to happier Slytherins.

 

Harry plopped into his seat at breakfast a few days later, wearily rubbing his eyes. Despite the sleep he’d been getting at nap time with the Slytherins, he was still recovering from the assault on his mind. 

“You’re late, Harry,” Hermione said, shovelling eggs and fruit onto his plate, “and you look terrible, never mind that you have a quidditch game today.”

“I had to run to the owlry to get this,” Harry said, placing a large parcel covered by the invisibility cloak in front of Hermione with a thunk, “couldn’t risk it flying in with the rest of the post. This thing looks damn suspicious.” 

“What is it?” Ron looked up from his food, mouth full of bacon.

“It’s the potion ingredients Hermione couldn’t find in the regular stocks here.” At this, Hermione made a grab for the parcel and carefully opened it under the invisibility cloak’s cover. Harry banished the crate it was in and Hermione was left staring in awe at the jar of boomslang skin on the table and the sack containing the bicorn horn resting in her lap.

“Where did you get these? Did you steal them?” Hermione raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“Uh I bought them?” Harry didn’t get why Hermione thought everything he did had to be illegal. “In this day and age, even getting the rare stuff is pretty easy if you can pay for them.” Hermione looked reluctant to take the ingredients and tapped one finger against the jar boomslang skin.

“Don't worry about it, mate,” Ron said, gesturing with a corner of toast, “she’s grateful. She  _ was  _ going to steal them from Snape, but now you've done her a favor and helped her keep her good record.” Harry and Hermione stared at Ron, both wondering where that delightfully cogent remark came from. Hermione punched him and the moment was gone. 

The quidditch game started like any other, with Harry spotting the obvious magical trail the snitch left behind and Malfoy looking in the wrong direction. Harry decided to let the game progress a little longer just to make things more interesting, but saw something that unsettled him. Both bludgers seemed to be far more aggressive than usual, taking out a Slytherin beater when he tried to hit one with his bat. Just to be on the safe side, however, Harry steered his broom in the snitch’s direction, intent on ending the game before anybody else got hurt. Unfortunately, his decisive turn caught the attention of both Draco and the bludgers. As much as he would have liked to duke it out with Malfoy, the bludgers on their tails were too close for comfort and the sooner he caught the snitch the better. The wild chase lead Harry and Draco under the stands somehow and then Harry knew the game was off. Spinning frantically to avoid some of the rafters, Harry could only hope that Draco could hold his own. 

They emerged after a few tense minutes from beneath the stadium and the worried bystanders roared. Neither of the two seekers heard the deafening cheers. Harry’s fingers at last closed around the slightly warm body of the snitch and he stopped his broom, hoping that with the game over, the bludgers could stop. To his horror, the bludgers kept coming and seemed to be aiming for Draco, who had his back to them, fuming from his loss. Harry dropped the snitch and instead flicked his wand into his hand, all the while tilting his broom forward to gain top speed. Upon reaching a very confused Draco, Harry flipped them around and struck out with his wand, casting a basic, but accurate blasting curse. The spell hit one bludger, but the other remained, clipping Harry’s wand arm before he could get away. He ducked when the bludger came back for him and flew away, leading it under the stands and away from the crowd. Harry pointed his wand again and cast a spell that made the bludger explode from the inside, sending pieces of shrapnel flying into the wood of the rafters. 

The impact of the explosion sent Harry flying into the fabric covering the rafters. With a terrible tearing sound, the fabric gave in and Harry emerged on the Gryffindor side of the stadium, his legs and one hand clutching the fabric as it continued to rip and his wand arm dangling limply at his side, still clutching his wand. Draco, who tried to follow Harry under the stands, emerged from the gaping hole in the fabric, hauled Harry onto his own broom and quickly descended. As they touched down, the crowd quickly emptied the stands and flooded onto the pitch in a colorful mob headed by the staff and the Malfoys. Dumbledore, flanked by McGonagall and Snape, strode to Harry’s side, his bright purple robes leaving tracks on the pristine grass.

“My word! Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?” McGonagall examined the pair of them. Both boys had sunk to the ground, still clutching each other and gasping for breath. Snape and the Malfoys knelt to expect their injuries. Both of them had superficial cuts from the exploding bludger debris and whiplash from being jolted about on their brooms. Narcissa fussed with a bleeding cut on Draco’s cheek while Lucius and Snape helped them to their feet. Hermione, Ron, Pansy, and Blaise made it through the crowd with Hermione cradling Harry’s broom. Harry hissed when Snape made a grab for his shoulder. 

“Broken,” Snape said, brows furrowed, “but we won’t know how bad until we get him to the hospital wing. Both of them have to go, Minerva.”

McGonagall nodded and asked, “Are you two steady enough on your feet to walk?”  
“Perhaps I can be of assistance?” Lockhart pushed his way through the crowd, robes gaudy enough to give Dumbledore a run for his money. “I am quite adept at magical healing. I can fix you two up right here and you won’t have to wait to get to the infirmary.” He started to take his wand out when Harry protested.

“You’re not touching me. I would much rather Madame Pomfrey looked after me,” Harry said, scrambling to get away from him. Draco followed suit and both boys hid behind Snape. Deflating a little under the scrutiny of the massive crowd behind them and the cross looking people in front of him, Lockhart stowed his wand and shuffled away.

“Madame Hooch,” Dumbledore rasped, “I suspect those bludgers were tampered with?” Madame Hooch billowed into existence beside him and offered him a hunk of metal that looked as if it was hit with another cannonball of superior size and then lit on fire. Dumbledore scrutinized the iron and waved his wand while he mumbled under his breath. Harry saw the lines of his magic permeate the destroyed bludger and the iron glowed a telltale blue. Dumbledore nodded gravely and said, “It has indeed been tampered with. This is a terrible incident, a prank gone wrong, I suspect.”

“A prank?” McGonagall asked incredulously, “Albus, Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy almost died. Regardless of whether or not it was intended as a prank, this needs to be investigated as a serious offense.”

Lucius took two graceful strides towards the headmaster, the only indication of his anger a vein popping out on his forehead. “Headmaster,” he began quietly, “both my son and my precious ward were injured today under your watch. Combined with the recent events concerning the Chamber of Secrets, I am sure the board would see the need of a full Ministry investigation of the school. I think it would be most beneficial for you to take this matter more seriously and fully investigate who put that curse on that bludger. After all, it is better to know that it was a harmless prank than something more sinister.”

“I assure you, the children's’ safety is of the utmost importance to me,” Dumbledore said placatingly, “but this incident in the events you’ve mentioned are under control and I am personally investigating them. There is no Chamber, as we have established time and again here, and whoever cursed this bludger will be caught in due time and punished severely.”  

 Lucius offered a tight smile and inclined his head. “Even so, the board is watching the school closely. Threats to such an important institution cannot be taken lightly.”

“As always, my staff and I will cooperate with the Ministry’s investigations,” Dumbledore replied graciously. “For now,” he continued, “let us take these two up to the infirmary. Harry looks like he’s in a great deal of pain.”

“Thank you, headmaster,” Harry said, still trying to hide his trembling wand arm in the folds of his robes. McGonagall shepherded the crowd away from the scene and Snape lead the injured and the Malfoys up to the infirmary.

“That game was a right mess,” Ron said, looking warily at Draco’s pained expression and Harry’s limp arm. They trailed a little behind the adults and none of them dared to breathe a word until they’d entered the castle. “Dumbledore should have stopped the game as soon as that bludger chased you under the stands. That’s never happened to anyone before and the safety charms on both the snitch and the bludgers should have prevented it. I wonder why he didn’t do anything during the game?”

“Are there any rules against allowing a game to continue after the players have gone out of bounds?” Hermione’s ruddy cheeks and ever frizzy hair were getting ruddier and frizzier the more she fumed.

“None,” Draco replied tightly, “ because the safety charms should have prevented it like Weasley said. There’s nothing in the rulebook to account for something that should be impossible.”

“Even so,  _ somebody  _ should have intervened before you two got hurt.” Hermione’s feet stomped in time with her outburst and on the last word, her toe accidentally stabbed Ron’s.

“Ow, Hermione, you don’t want three injured friends, do you?” Ron hopped on one foot and skipped a little to catch up with the group.

“You two ought to sue, you know,” said Pansy, who’d taken a corner of Draco’s quidditch robes between two fingers.

“My father’s reported him to the Board of Governors. That’s as good as leashing him,” Draco said, shrugging. As they entered the infirmary, Madame Pomfrey sat them down on beds facing opposite each other. The Malfoys stayed by the entranceway to chat with Snape. Draco noticed that Harry hadn’t spoken the entire walk there and shuffled to Harry’s bed to peer cautiously at his friend. 

“Harry, what’s wrong,” he asked, carefully brushing the hair aside from Harry’s face. The others paused in their conversation. He found Harry’s skin pale and bloodless, expression lined with pain. Harry looked tiredly at him and tried to crack a smile.

“It hurts,” he said simply, gesturing to his arm.

“Harry, we talked about this. If you were hurting this bad, you were to tell me or anyone here.” Draco darted to Harry’s other side and gingerly peeled off  Harry’s bracers.

“I told you it hurt, didn’t I?” Harry allowed Malfoy’s ministrations, but watched warily as Hermione bounded over to look at his injury. They found his forearm bent and trembling at an unnatural angle.

“I meant before I had to ask you, prat,” he said. The lack of an answering chuckle worried him more.

“Let me,” Hermione said, quivering as she conjured a makeshift splint.

“Hold on, why are you still holding your wand?” Draco tried to take the wand from him, but found that Harry’s fingers wouldn’t uncurl from the wood and the skin of Harry’s palm was encrusted with blood.

“I’m getting Madame Pomfrey,” Hermione said on the verge of tears. The rest of their group crowded around Harry and each seemed ready to catch him.

“Harry, how did this even happen?” Blaise face pinched together and his eyes were, for once, empathetic.

“I may have overdone it on a few of those blasting curses,” Harry replied, wavering slightly. Madame Pomfrey bustled over and shooed all but the injured out of the infirmary. She dealt with Draco first while Snape checked on Harry.

“I know your arm is broken, but I can’t set bones as well as Poppy can,” Snape said, rolling up his sleeves. “I can, however, help with your hand.” He applied a salve to Harry’s hand and gently pried the skin off of the wood. 

“What did you cast?” Snape set the wand aside and looked gravely at the severe burns on Harry’s palm.

“Er bombarda?” Harry said, sheepishly.

“Right, bombarda caused your mild magical exhaustion and burned your skin into your wand from the magical recoil,” Snape bit back. “What did you cast?”  
“Fine, it was displodio,” he said after a tense pause. At Snape’s dark look, Harry said, “I wasn’t lying about the bombarda. I did use it on the first bludger. I used displodio on the other one when no one was there to see.”

“Regardless of whether your cover was blown, that casting was dangerous. Your body, as you can plainly see, is not ready for such taxing spells. These burns are the extent of your injuries this time, but it could be your whole body next time. You’re a powerful wizard, Harry, but you’re a child. Your body is in a stage of development and it won’t be until you are at least fourteen or fifteen that you will be ready to take on spells like displodio. When you turn seventeen, you can cast whatever the hell you want, but for now, you are twelve and you will know your limits. Are we clear?”

“Yes, professor,” Harry replied, ears flaming red, “sorry.” Poppy swished in and saved Harry further embarrassment.

“If I see you in here one more time,” she said as she magically set and healed Harry’s arm, “I’ll set aside a bed and install a plaque with your name on it and you’ll never leave it. How on earth did you manage to break your arm in two places, fracture your collarbone, and magically exhaust yourself? It hardly seems possible.” She gave orders to stay overnight with his burned hand wrapped with some salve and a potion to fix his collar bone. Draco had similar orders to stay so that Poppy could keep an eye on a mild concussion he had from hitting his head on a rafter. After Harry and Draco had both changed into the customary hospital wing jammies, Narcissa kissed both goodbye and sauntered to the fireplace before both Malfoys flooed home. The battered duo settled in for a long night of healing. 


	12. The Broken Boy Chapter 12

12.

 

_ Wake,  _ the floaters rumbled. Harry obeyed and his eyes snapped open, though he didn’t dare move a muscle. Immediately, he caught sight of a cloaked figure silhouetted by the pale moonlight filtering in through the large windows of the hospital wing. Harry lay on his side facing Draco’s bed and he could see the figure placing a hand on Draco’s face and the threads of magical energy putting his friend into a magical sleep. As the figure left Draco and approached Harry, he fought to keep his breathing even and shut his eyes again. He knew that energy signature anywhere. 

“Harry,” Professor Dumbledore said, gently shaking Harry awake. Harry sprang upright in half faked fear.

“Oh, it’s you, Professor,” he said in a low whisper, “I thought you were…”

“Everything is alright, my boy,” Dumbledore replied as Harry trailed off, “and I know who you thought I was. For your fright to be so far reaching even in the safety of this castle, I am deeply sorry.” For a moment, the old man even looked guilty. Harry knew better.  
“It wasn’t your fault, Professor,” Harry muttered shakily, “you couldn’t have known.” Dumbledore patted Harry’s knee and in the moonlight, his eye twinkled.

“I’m sorry I’ve woken you, dear child. I just thought that in the day’s commotion, I might take these quiet hours to finally have a conversation with you. I feel that I owe you an explanation.” 

Harry drew up his knees and rested his chin there, waiting expectantly for the old man to speak. The floaters rumbled all the while, warning him to be prepared.

“I left you at the Dursley’s hoping to give you a normal childhood far away from the troubles of the wizarding world. Following the defeat of Voldemort, the world was in chaos and a great many people meant you harm. What is more, people idolized you and I, a foolish old man, thought you would be spoiled from the fame and sent you away.” Dumbledore paused and buried a hand in his beard. “What Vernon did to you, however, I did not anticipate. I never expected him to lay a hand on his own nephew.”

_ Lies,  _ the floaters thundered. Harry agreed and always thought the spirits to be a good judge of character. He remained silent, eyes downcast.

“I can never expect you to return to that house, dear boy, but you must know that I placed you there for your own good. You see, your mother bestowed upon you protection when she died. Your aunt’s house was protected by the blood ward resultant of your mother’s sacrifice and kept you from harm so long as you called it home.”

Harry trembled involuntarily and shut his eyes hard. Dumbledore’s hand came to rest on his shoulder and Harry almost believed the touch to be genuinely comforting, but remembered who the hand belonged to and felt sick all over again.

“I don’t think-” Harry began, cutting himself off with a thick swallow, “I don’t think I could ever call that place home, sir.”

“I don’t blame you. It came as a shock to me that the Malfoys were kind enough to take you in, however. They have treated you well?” 

“They have, sir,” Harry said, calming down a bit. “They treat me like real family. I don’t care what people say about Mr. Malfoy. He’s been kinder to me than my own blood.”

“I must warn you, Harry,” Dumbledore said, looking unpersuaded by Harry’s testimony, “that Lucius was involved with the dark lord at the height of his power. Perhaps you can be persuaded to take up residence with the Weasleys?” Here, the truth was out.

“Mr. Malfoy isn’t like that anymore,” Harry said, aiming for naivety, “and Snape used to work for him too, didn’t he? People can change. I like the Weasleys, I really do, but the Malfoys are family to me now.”

“Harry, sometimes people say things and don’t truly mean them. Even if the Malfoys treat you well and tell you they love you, they once sided with the man who wished you harm.” Harry supposed he saw the point in that, but he wanted to decide for himself where the Malfoys stood.

“But Professor,” Harry persisted, “we’re really blood related. Besides, you said that my mother’s sacrifice protected me wherever I considered home to be. Well, it’s Malfoy Manor now.” Dumbledore was taken aback and narrowed his eyes, looking searchingly at Harry, one hand still working through his prodigious beard.

“I see you care a great deal for your new family, Harry,” he said at last, almost begrudgingly, “and while I do still hope you’ll be careful around the Malfoys’ associates, I’m happy you haven’t turned to hate after what your uncle did to you.” Harry didn’t respond to that. Dumbledore spent a few more idle moments patting Harry’s knee and stroking his beard contemplatively and Harry fought the urge to assault the old man with questions. Why hadn’t he sent someone, anyone to check up on him with customary visits? Why the blocks on his powers? Why encourage his uncle to hurt him? What did he have to gain? What was he playing at, visiting at night to put on a show of affection? These questions, Harry barely contained with caution like a river being held back by a dam made of mud and sticks. 

_ Hold your tongue, young one,  _ the floaters chanted like a mantra,  _ for the old one must not know of you discontent or your anger. Keep your feelings hidden and you will be safe.  _ Again, Harry obeyed and waited. He looked up, however, and found Dumbledore looking straight into his eyes and a probe grazing lightly over his thoughts. Harry was ready for it and he let Dumbledore into his mind, letting him read his affection for the Malfoys, mundane things about school, and his anxieties over the thing that lurked the halls. Everything else, everything important, he locked away under the strongest shields he could muster. Dumbledore pulled away looking satisfied and Harry knew the ruse worked. Pretending to fall asleep shortly after, Harry could hear the alarmed sounds of McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey bringing someone else into the hospital wing. Harry cracked one eye open and felt aching shock and grief grip his heart. It was Collin, petrified with his camera still clutched in his arms. As soon as Dumbledore and the other professors had gone, he flung himself from the bed to Collin’s side.

_ Fear not, for he is alive,  _ the floaters said, sensing his anxieties,  _ he is petrified, a death-like state that is reversible. Look into his soul and use your power to free him.  _ Harry’s breathing evened and he looked closer at the boy lying in a cramped position on the bed. The Collin’s soul was still firmly attached to his body in the living plane, but in the astral plane, he could see that it was being locked in place by a malignant magical energy signature. Harry prodded the coil and wrenched it from Collin’s soul. The thing writhed against the unexpected force and burst after it lost its grasp on Collin’s life force. Collin was at once free again and he started violently on the bed.

“Collin! Thank goodness you’re alive,” Harry said, grasping Collin’s shoulders to calm him down. Relief washed over him along with a rush of fondness for his would be stalker. “You’re okay now, Collin. Just breathe. That’s right, breathe. I’m going to get Madam Pomfrey.” He left Collin sputtering on the bed and shuffled rapidly to Madam Pomfrey’s office in the back of the hospital wing. The old woman emerged in her nightgown and found Collin awake and moving again. The only explanation for his miraculous recovery she could offer was just as it sounds-a miracle. Harry eagerly agreed that it was indeed a miracle and shuffled back into bed, keeping his eyes on Collin until his heavy eyelids finally closed. 

 

As Christmas creeped closer, Hermione’s potion looked closer to disgusting completion. Harry spied the lumpy contents of her cauldron and winced, imagining that the stew of unwholesome ingredients tasted as bad as it smelled. Their study group collectively decided to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas to see their plan through. 

“Don’t worry about Crabbe and Goyle,” Draco said, as Hermione proposed something about cakes and sleeping draught, “I’ll just instruct them to wait for me in a broom cupboard. No, really. They’ll do it if I ask. I don’t get why either.”

Hermione made a face and rolled her eyes. She disillusioned the cauldron and packed her things. “We better get to dueling club.”

“They’re bonkers for letting Lockhart sponsor that club,” Ron exclaimed as he lurched to his feet. “I haven’t seen him cast anything since he’s been here.”

“I have,” Blaise said, scoffing, “and I can tell you he’s no better at simple charms than you, Weasley. That chair you blew up in charms was just bad aim. Lockhart can’t even manage to blow things up on accident.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, missing the insult, “and I have a busted wand!”

“Harry, you coming?” Draco asked impatiently. Dueling club had him bouncing eagerly on his heels.

“Yeah yeah, hold on,” Harry replied. “I just need to actually use the bathroom in here for once. You lot go on ahead.” He waved them off. As soon as the door shut, he turned and called out to the empty bathroom.

“Hey Myrtle? Can I talk to you for a minute? I know you’re here. You’re always here.” Myrtle emerged from the wall behind him, giggling.

“Why Harry,” she cooed, “this is the first time you’ve ever called out to me. You reconsidering my request that you let me watch you bathe?”

“No, Myrtle,” he chuckled, “I just wanted to ask you a few things.” Harry wandlessly conjured a chair to perch on in a show of power that made Myrtle’s grin falter a little. The ghost hovered closer to the ground, suddenly wary of Harry’s tone. Harry was calm and devoid of the usual squeamishness that accompanied having a conversation with Myrtle. 

“How did you die, Myrtle? Did it have something to do with the Chamber? I know you hang around us for the sole reason that we’re poking our heads into this Chamber business.” Harry followed Myrtle with his eyes as she fidgeted.

“That’s very rude of you to ask, Harry. A ghost’s death is her own business.” She paused, as if debating something in her head. “I suppose I can tell you since you’re so cute. I died here in this very spot after seeing this giant yellow eye. And yes, I guess I did die the last time the Chamber was opened. I thought that this time, maybe one of you might die too and I’d have a playmate to spend eternity with.”

“Was this eye attached to anything? Do you remember anything else at all?” Harry locked his fingers together and leaned his chin on his knuckles, smiling sweetly at Myrtle. His eyes followed her as she fidgeted. Ghosts were tricky to sort out even with the Sight. Myrtle’s swath of magical energy was always moving like spun sugar, but when he concentrated, he could see the murky malignant energy signature that followed her to the grave. It was the same sort that clung to Collin’s soul, only much larger and much angrier. 

“I don’t remember!” Myrtle stomped her foot and while it made no noise, her outburst caused a toilet across from her to explode. Harry didn’t flinch and merely flicked a finger to cast a shield charm over his head to deflect the water. Myrtle tensed and slowly backed away, almost forgetting that she was a ghost.

“You’ve been holding back, Harry,” she said, winking at him.

“Well I’ve just decided that as long as we’re being truthful here, I might as well lay all my cards on the table. You wouldn’t lie to  _ me,  _ so I won’t lie to you.” Harry leaned back into his chair, waiting patiently. Myrtle huffed and crossed her arms.

“If you  _ must  _ know, I followed someone in here because I heard crying and I saw a huge yellow eye in a huge snake’s head by those sinks before poof, I was dead.” Myrtle huffed again resignedly and muttered, “I’ve been here ever since in this wretched place.”

Harry tapped a finger to his lips in thought. “How old did you say you were Myrtle?”

Myrtle narrowed her eyes and responded. “I’ll be 14 forever if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve been a ghost for oh-say fifty years give or take. People stop counting after you die.” Harry rose and banished his chair.

“Myrtle, how would you like to be done with this whole ghost business? What’s keeping you here? Obviously, you don’t like being stuck here.” 

Myrtle scoffed and threw her head back. “You think I want to stay? I’ve tried everything to cross over. I’ve even annoyed the staff enough that they’ve tried having me exorcised. The most that ever got me was a mild headache.”

Harry closed his eyes, unsure of exactly how he was going to do this.  _ Look into her soul and take the evil away. Take the pain away and ease her into the afterlife. You were born to do this. Feel what is right.  _ He reached out with one hand and felt Myrtle’s soul as if he could feel it, cold, yet pulsing with the potential for life.

“What are you doing, Harry? I can feel something. I shouldn’t feel anything. I’m a ghost,” Myrtle asked, trembling.

“I’m letting you go home, Myrtle,” he said, opening his eyes, “I can make all of the pain go away, Myrtle, on the condition that you help me.” Myrtle gasped and she knew his words to be true _.  _ She trembled and cried as she nodded her head.

“I will, I will. Oh, I’ve wanted this horrible, endless life to end for so long. I watched my parents die knowing that I could never be with them again. I’ll do anything you ask. What would you have of me?” Myrtle’s figure crumpled in on itself as she fell to her knees. Harry squatted to be level with her.

“Oh, Myrtle,” he sighed, “You don’t need to do anything. I’ll take care of you. This won’t hurt a bit.” She nodded and Harry closed his eyes again, seeing her only in the astral plane. He found her soul and ripped out the malignant thing that killed her in the first place. Myrtle whimpered and shivered as the black presence dissolved from her form in a miasmic cloud. Harry mended the rest of her soul and when it was whole and smooth again, he pushed it away to the part of the astral plane he knew he could never enter as a living being. He opened his eyes and Myrtle the ghost was gone and in his hand floated a wispy sliver of quicksilver he knew to be a memory. 

“Find whatever did this to me, Harry, and thank you.” Myrtle’s last words rushed by Harry’s ears and suddenly, he was well and truly alone in that bathroom. Harry stood and pulled a vial from his bag, guiding the memory into it with his wand.  _ You’ve done well, child,  _ the floaters whispered to him,  _ and your power with the dead grows by the day.  _ Harry smiled at their praise. “She’s with you, then?”

_ She is. She was and always has been. We are one and she has been with us all along just as you are even as you breathe.  _

Harry shook his head, still not quite understanding what that meant.

“I am Legion, for we are many,” he chuckled to himself.

_ That is true as it has been said of us since before man understood death.  _

“Well Legion, I’m late for dueling club,” Harry said, finally leaving the bathroom behind.

 

Harry emerged in the Great Hall just in time to hear Snape shut down another one of Lockhart’s boasting speeches.

“For the last time, the students don’t want to hear how shiny your teeth are in comparison with the night’s sky, you dolt!” Snape paused for breath and fixed his gaze on Harry.

“Potter! Come here. I need you to demonstrate a proper dueler’s stance for your peers.  I’m sure Professor Lockhart would agree with me when I say students will learn better watching one of their own.” Harry sighed and acquiesced, dropping his bag on the floor by the dueling platform. 

“Would anyone care to be Mr. Potter’s opponent?” Professor Lockhart asked, trying to look useful. 

“I’ll do it,” Draco shouted, as he made his way to the platform through the throng of students in his way. Harry shot an amused glance Draco’s way as they bowed and assumed their stances. Snape pointed out their raised arms and posture as well as the placement of their feet before allowing them to continue with the duel. Harry shot fairly basic curses at Draco, who complied.

“Notice that since we are indeed in an academic setting, duels do not need to be overtly forceful or harmful to either participant,” Snape called out didactically over their casting. 

“Duels can also include seconds,” Lockhart said, showing some of his minimal understanding of dueling. 

“The purpose of this club,” Snape continued, ignoring Lockhart, “is to help you all practice your defense spell repertoire in practical use. While we are no longer at war, it is still important that you learn to protect yourself and learn to use your magic responsibly. The wand is as much a weapon as it is your commonplace tool.” Snape allowed the class to observe Harry and Draco duel at an easy pace, generally one spell at a time followed by a dodging demonstration.

“Boys,” Snape called after five minutes, “show us what you’ve learned over the summer.” Both of them grinned and launched into a much faster paced duel. Harry moved first, firing off two curses, a full body bind and an expelliarmus. Draco dodged one and deflected to other and shot two of his own curses at Harry, who rolled out of the way. The casting sped up rapidly and soon, both boys were panting from the exertion. After a numbing hex seemed to hit one of Draco’s leg, he lost some of his composure and a spell misfired. 

“Serpensortia!” The spell flew from his lips before he could even think about it and an irate snake flew from the tip of his wand onto the stage. Harry lowered his wand and looked quizzically at Draco, who shrugged his shoulders. The viper that Draco summoned weaved erratically on the floor and avoided Draco’s attempts to banish it. Lockhart pulled out his own wand and Harry had to dodge one of Lockhart’s own misfired spells. The snake, incensed by Lockhart’s casting, struck out as if to attack the nearest student. Harry hissed to tell the snake to stop without thinking and the Great Hall froze. He knelt to pick up the snake and hissed at it quietly to calm it down. The boy he saved glared at him as the whole hall started muttering to themselves.

“What the bloody hell was that? Parseltongue? So you’re Slytherin’s heir?” The boy spat at Harry and looked disgusted.

“Oy Justin Finch-my-last-name’s-too-long-Fletchly,” Draco spat, coming to Harry’s defense, “Potter just saved your sorry hide, so you’d better be thanking him instead of throwing around baseless accusations.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you, filthy Slytherin trash,” Justin bit back, defensively. Some of his friends joined in and agreed with him. “If he isn’t the heir, then explain how he knows Parseltongue?”

“Mr. Finch-Fletchly,” Snape cut in, holding Draco back, “None of that language here. Twenty points from Hufflepuff. I am aware of Mr. Potter’s abilities and I have examined it closely. It is likely a side effect of being hit with the killing curse as an infant. The Chamber is not real, Slytherin has no heirs, and all of you will stop with this nonsense this instant!”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Justin persisted, “how do we know what you’re saying is true? How do we know the killing curse caused it?”

“Well, the next time you save the wizarding world and survive getting hit with the killing curse cast by  _ the only living parselmouth of this age,  _ let us know,” Draco spat, shrugging off Snape’s hold. He took a stunned Harry by the arm and lead him off the stage. Harry shook himself and asked the snake where it came from before handing it off to a perturbed Lockhart with instructions to send it to some rainforest in Brazil. He ignored the looks the other students shot his way as he left the hall with Draco.

“I’m so sorry that happened, Harry,” Draco said frantically after finally obtaining some privacy outside. Harry leant against one of the stone columns in the sundial garden with his head in his hands. Draco, Ron, Hermione, Pansy, Neville, and Blaise formed a tight, protective half circle around him.

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” he said, shaking his head. “It would have happened eventually. I just can’t believe so many people would react like that. I mean, I know parseltongue’s dark and all, but to think that they would even think that I could do those awful things to Mrs. Norris and then Collin-”

“Nobody believed that prat, Harry,” Draco said, “and I defended you because I know you didn’t do anything he’s accusing you of.”

“We don’t believe any of it either Harry,” Hermione said gently, “and the school knows it’s rubbish. He’s just scared. We all are.” 

“If I were you, I would have cursed Justin into the next century,” Pansy said, crossing her arms. “I admire your restraint.”

“Thanks for your reassurances,” Harry said, pushing himself from the column and gathering his things, “but I would prefer that the school didn’t think I was some murderous psychopath. The sooner the polyjuice potion is done, the better.” The rest of the group agreed with him heartily and they made their way to the greenhouses for Herbology.


	13. The Broken Boy Ch. 13

As the first days of Christmas holidays rolled around, Harry found some time alone to examine Myrtle’s memory. He poured the milky white, translucent fluid into one of the sinks he’d stoppered and dove in. The memory was flickery and distorted, showing Myrtle stumbling upon a figure in the bathroom clearly crying, hissing things to a massive serpent whose head stuck out from a hole flanked by a few sinks.

“That wasn’t the plan,” the boy hissed, “We can’t keep doing this or I’ll be caught. I can’t be expelled. I can’t go back to the orphanage without magic. You’re acting so strangely-” The boy stopped as Myrtle gasped, too focused on the basilisk to focus on the boy’s face. The memory ended abruptly there and Harry pulled away, shivering from the dregs of death that clung to such a memory. Harry stowed the memory away and sat leaning against the sinks, reeling from the discovery that the Chamber had lain under his feet the whole time. The only thing he could think to do was get that diary to find out who wanted the Chamber open and why.

 

Harry swallowed and fought the impulse to dry heave again as he composed himself in front of one of the sinks. He would keep the stuff down, dammit. The polyjuice potion he couldn’t manage to force down lay abandoned in the sink before him and even the old reliable pipes seemed to be rejecting the green sludge. Hermione was in another stall making suspicious retching noises while Ron had given up altogether and spewed his chunks in the drain that lay in the middle of the room. Draco, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle diverted their eyes out of respect. 

“Harry, if you need to throw up, I really wouldn’t blame you,” Pansy said, quietly backing away from Ron’s growing puddle of sick. Harry held up his index finger and pounded himself on the chest, still swallowing hard. He turned back to the mirror and observed his features changing. His hair lengthened and his face narrowed and his highly arched eyebrows furrowed in convincing shock and confusion.

“Oy! Why are you me, Potter?” Pansy grabbed Harry by the collar and spun him around to face her. Hermione emerged at the same moment and examined her fingers, which had turned into the thick, calloused hands of Gregory Goyle. 

“Hermione,” Harry groaned, “You mixed up the hairs. I’m Pansy.” Hermione’s hands flew to her face in horror and she bent to check the mirror. She screamed and jumped away.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get the image of Goyle wearing a skirt out of my head,” Draco said, snickering. Goyle grunted and elbowed him. 

“I’ve never been so self conscious about my height,” Harry said, looking down at his now too-short pant legs. “Why have I never realized that you were this much taller than me?” Pansy shrugged and stuck her tongue out at him. Ron finally picked himself off the floor with a disgusted groan and looked at himself in the mirror.

“Blimey, that was rough,” he said, washing his mouth out.

“I’ll not have you putting your hands on  _ my body _ . Get out of it this instant,” Pansy said, petulantly stamping her foot. Harry put both hands on his hips in a mocking imitation of Pansy’s stance.

“I need to change, Pan,” he said, “Do you really have so little faith in me?”

Pansy’s cheeks colored and she looked as if she were about to pounce until Harry chuckled and put his hands up in mock surrender. He transfigured his robes into a Slytherin girl’s uniform and did the same for Hermione and Ron. 

“Right, well, we won’t know for sure how long you three have, but the sooner we get this done, the better,” Draco said, beckoning to the door. “Pan, Crabbe, Goyle, stay here and hide in the stalls until we come back. You three can’t be seen.” Crabbe and Goyle grunted and obediently shut themselves into one stall. Pansy rolled her eyes and trudged into another. Harry and the others hurried down into the dungeons. The common room was blessedly empty when they arrived save for a few older students scattered about the spacious common room. Malfoy stood watch between the doors that lead to each dorm and the group barely stopped to take in the dark marble before each of them sprinted off in search of the entrance to the chamber of secrets. Harry made his way to the girls’ dorm and closed the door behind him with a relieved sigh when he saw that it too was empty. While impersonating Pansy unnerved him, his ruse had worked and he could go on with his work. Treading softly, he crept into each room and bent to read the names on each of the trunks in search of Millicent Bulstrode’s bed. His skin prickled as he walked between the swathes of green cloth draped over the beds. It took a few minutes to find Millicent’s bed  and a few more to rummage through the trunk, only to find that it was nowhere to be found. Replacing the lid, Harry turned to find a girl peering at him from a gap in her curtains.

“What are you doing in Millicent’s things, Pansy?” The girl poked her head all the way out from the curtains and revealed herself to be Daphne Greengrass. 

“I’m looking for a book she borrowed from me. You know how forgetful she can be,” Harry lied smoothly, doing his best to imitate Pansy’s signature sass. Daphne drew back her curtains and Harry could see how disheveled she really was. The few times he saw her around school, Daphne was always well groomed and hung around Pansy when she wasn’t with Draco. 

“Daph, what’s wrong?” Harry rushed to Daphne’s side as the poor girl rushed to dry her eyes and smooth down her flaxen hair.

“Pansy, I can’t tell you,” she said, a slight tremor running through her high-born accent. Harry did his best to be effeminate, crossing his legs and placing a comforting arm around Daphne’s trembling shoulders. 

“What is it, Daphne? You can tell me anything. You know you can,” he cooed, brushing yet more tears from Daphne’s face.

“It’s the hissing, Pan. It’s driving me crazy. A diary. It’s telling me to-” Daphne bit her lip, drawing blood, and shook her head violently. 

“Hey, hey, Daph. Look at me.” She turned and Harry took that moment to dive into her mind as his eyes locked with her deep blue irises. What he found there was exactly as he found in Ginny’s mind. This time, he didn’t bother to confront the thing that caused her pain and instead evicted it with brute force and obliviated the rest of the memories associated with the diary. Harry pulled away with a start and looked to examine Daphne. Her eyes drooped and her sculpted brow furrowed in confusion as Harry put her to bed. The girl needed her sleep. As he lowered Daphne’s head to the pillow, Harry could feel a lump through the cotton. He grabbed the diary and bolted out the door, desperate to get away from the Slytherin common room and make it somewhere private.

“You find anything?” He asked breathlessly as he met the other three. They shook their heads dejectedly.

“Let’s get out of here before that potion wears off,” Draco said in a low voice, gesturing to Ron’s reddening hair. All of them walked as hastily as they could without drawing attention to themselves and stopped to breathe only when they burst through the bathroom doors. 

“Finally,” Pansy said, emerging from her stall, “Harry Potter, get out of my body this instant!” Harry chuckled and transfigured his clothes back to normal. 

“Pan, there’s nothing I can do but wait for the potion to wear off. Look, it’s about finished. Happy?” Harry’s face boiled and his body shrunk to its regular size.

“Well that was a bust,” Ron said as he, too shrank and he tripped over his robes.

“Thanks anyway,” Draco sighed.

“If it makes you feel better,” Harry said as he transfigured Ron and Hermione’s clothes, “I cast a few powerful silencing charms on the walls on the way out. I doubt they’ll stop the weird things altogether, but I hope it will help all of you sleep,” he said.

“Thanks. All of you,” Draco, said, gesturing to everyone.

 

The next morning, Harry was alone outside in the clearing just past Hagrid’s hut sheltered by low hanging trees. It was early and the sun had only just banished the dew from the grass and Harry sat cross-legged staring pensively at the diary in his lap. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. Writing in it was the simple answer, but it seemed too easy, too stupid. Instead, he probed it with his magic. Though he approached it gently, the diary retaliated with a shockwave of its own that blasted Harry away from it. He flipped over backwards and almost lost a shoe before flipping the right way around and scrambling back to the diary that lay innocently on the grass as if nothing happened. The thing, whatever it was, had a generating source of magic, a magical core. A soul. Harry cursed for not thinking of it earlier and examined the diary closer with the Sight. There was a soul burning white hot with energy in its pages.

_ It is but a vessel,  _ the floaters hissed.  _ Caution. Interacting with it would affect you as it did the others. _

“I know that,” Harry huffed, straightening his coat and smoothing down his shirt, “but I need to talk to it.”

_ Give the soul a physical form. Make it solid. Look into it to discover what it was in life. _

“I can do that?” Harry was mystified at the thought of giving this thing a body. “Like a ghost?”

_ It is similar. Ghosts draw from the energy of emotions left over from their lifetimes. This piece of a soul would rely on you to exist. Take care, for it may take its toll on your energies.  _

Harry grunted and focused on the soul before him, lending it his magic and allowing the soul to show him the form it took in life. Beads of sweat formed on his brow as he concentrated. The amount of energy it took to create a person took its toll, but before he realized what he was doing, a boy a few years older than he appeared before him on all fours with an irritated expression on his face.

“How is this happening right now?” The boy’s voice was deeper than Harry expected it to be and it cracked with barely controlled anger. “Why didn’t you just write in the stupid journal,” he continued, “It’s a bloody journal. What else would you have done with it? How-how are you doing this? I don’t understand and not understanding displeases me.”

“My secrets are my own to keep, stranger,” Harry replied coolly, arching an annoyed eyebrow. “You’ve been stuck in that little diary playing dangerous pranks on people and I just let you out to play for a while. Shouldn’t you be more grateful?”

The boy looked at his translucent body and back at Harry. “I can tell that you’re somehow supporting me with your magic, but it still doesn’t explain how you did this.”

“Very good,” Harry said, surprised that the boy knew so much, “but I won’t tell you more unless I get a name.”

“I’m Tom,” the boy spat disdainfully.

“Tom who?” Harry asked as if to a child.

“Riddle,” Tom growled out.

“Well, Mr. Riddle, my name is Harry Potter and I’ll let you in on just one secret. I’m a necromancer. I work with dead things.” 

Tom froze and looked at Harry with cold, steely eyes and said, “Don’t call me by that filthy muggle name. I am Tom first and a Riddle second. You have the Sight, then?”

“Secrets, secrets, Tom. I answered one of your questions. It’s my turn to ask,” Harry replied. “Why are you trying to get people to open the Chamber of Secrets for you? You’re only a soul. What would you have to gain?” Tom folded his legs beneath him and huffed.

“I’m trying to get my body back, obviously,” he said, “and those pranks as you call them are unintended side effects.” He looked down to inspect his fingernails. “I wasn’t  _ trying  _ to hurt anybody, they were necessary casualties.”

“You think putting people in the hospital wing is necessary? That attack on Justin the other day. You’re trying to frame me, aren’t you? That thing in the Chamber. What is it?” 

“It’s my turn to ask questions, Potter. You’re a necromancer and that’s rare enough,” Tom hissed, suddenly reverting to parseltongue, “but how are you a parselmouth? I’m the only descent of Salazar Slytherin left. It should be impossible.”

“I got hit with the killing curse by the previous Dark Lord when I was a baby,” Harry replied, squinting his eyes at Tom. The last parselmouth to ever exist was Voldemort. 

“A Dark Lord? You can’t mean Grindelwald. He’s still in prison.” Tom looked sheepishly at Harry, his own gears turning. 

“You’re not fooling me, Tom. You would have seen glimpses of Voldemort in Ginny’s mind or Daphne’s. He’s all anyone’s talked about. No one my age has even heard of Grindelwald it happened so long ago. How are you related to him?” Tom only smiled smugly at him. After a few tense minutes, Harry sighed.

“Fine, different question,” he said. “What is it? What is Slytherin’s beast?”

“You mean you haven’t figured it out? It’s a basilisk, of course.”

“It was one of my guesses,” Harry shrugged. “Your turn.”

“How are you so very good at occlumency? You’re almost as good as me.”

“I had a lot of practice,” Harry replied, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. “My mindscape has always been mine to control, but I still need more work. I have one hell of a headache thanks to you.” Tom laughed and relaxed incrementally.

“I’ll make you a deal, Potter,” he said, still looking quizzically at Harry. Silently, Harry wondered just how much he was seeing. “As long as you have my diary, I’m completely helpless. If you help me with something, I’ll stop these attacks. You’re far more useful than those dithering girls and I don’t even have to possess you.”

“If you’re so helpless, shouldn’t the attacks cease? I thought you were behind all of it.”

“No, not all of it.” Tom’s smug grin faded a bit. “I can’t tell you why, but the attacks will continue even without me to goad them on.” 

“Harry!” A voice Harry recognized to be Hagrid’s sounded behind him. 

“Hide, quickly,” Harry said as he hastily tucked the diary away into his robes. Tom snorted and threw up his hands. 

“Where? We’re in the middle of a clearing. If I moved now, he could see me.”

“I don’t know, go back into the diary!” Harry whipped his head around to gauge how far Hagrid was. When he turned back around, Tom was gone.

“In here,” Tom’s disembodied voice said, seemingly from nowhere.

“Where? You’re in my head?”

“No, I’m in the diary, you fool. I’m simply using one of the more clever things I put on this diary. I used it on the girls, but since  _ you  _ are so frightfully good at the mind arts, it was much easier to establish a psychic connection with you.”

“Harry!” Hagrid said, bumbling down into the clearing, “What’re you doin’ down ‘ere by yerself so early in the mornin’?”

“I came out for a walk, Hagrid.” Harry did his best to look troubled. “Justin’s attack is still bothering me.” Hagrid sighed and thumped Harry’s back comfortingly. 

“Oh I dun blame you. A sigh’ like tha’ could give anyone the spooks.” Harry could still remember Justin’s prone form and Nearly Headless Nick’s frozen, agonized posture. He was astonished, now that he knew, at the thought that a basilisk’s gaze could affect even a ghost. When the rest of the school turned on him, Harry decided that visiting Justin in the infirmary to fix him would only incriminate him further. He couldn’t even begin to figure how to fix Nick when the staff could do little but let his body float where he’d been attacked. 

“I haven’t slept properly in ages. I thought coming out here would help,” he lied smoothly. It was, again, only a half lie. Only sneaking into the Slytherin dorms could take his mind off of the latest attacks.

“Hagrid?” He continued, “Where did you come from? I didn’t hear your cabin door shut.”

“Oh, I came from the forest behind me house. I ha’ to tend to my roosters.,” Hagrid replied, diverting his eyes to a random spot in the sky. He was a terrible liar.

“Hagrid, what’s wrong? You can tell me anything. Remember Norbert?” Harry flashed him the biggest doe eyes he could manage.

“No, no, honest. Somethin’s been killing me roosters lately and I went to put up more chicken wire.” Hagrid was still lying, but not about the roosters.

“A-anyway,” Hagrid stuttered, desperately trying to change the subject, “we should head up to the castle for breakfast before we miss it.”

“No, you go ahead, Hagrid. I’m not hungry.” Hagrid trudged off without him and Harry made a beeline for the forest behind Hagrid’s house.

“What on earth are you doing, Potter?” Tom’s voice sounded in his head.

“I need to see what Hagrid’s hiding,” he said, pointing to the spiders scuttling madly towards the forest.

“Oh you needn’t bother. I made the other two twits kill the roosters. They could kill my basilisk, you know.”

“Hush, you,” Harry said, following the line of spiders. The forest darkened slightly behind him as the sky became obscured with layers of spider silk. He reached a clearing occupied by a giant spider.

“The acromantula that damned fool of a half-giant raised grew quite a bit,” Tom chuckled.

“What, Hagrid? You mean Hagrid is friends with this thing?”

“Friend of Hagrid,” the spider said, “I am Aragog.”

“Yes,” Tom continued, both of them ignoring Aragog, “and I managed to frame him for opening the Chamber the first time I did it.”

“You mean you’re the reason Hagrid is stuck as this castle’s groundskeeper?” Harry wanted to slap himself for neglecting to even ask Hagrid why he never finished at Hogwarts.

“Of course,” Tom laughed over Aragog’s speech, “the man’s a menace with a wand. Graduating wouldn’t have benefited him in the least. Thanks to me, he has this job and not a financial worry in the world. Half-giants can only get so far with or without an education.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” Harry said wryly.

“I am sorry, friend of Hagrid,” Aragog continued. It was clear at this point he meant to make Harry his next meal. Harry’s wand was at once in his hand.

“Oh come off it, you,” he said, quite annoyed that his conversation with Tom had been interrupted. He cast a few explosive incendios at a group of spiders that got too close. They were instantly set ablaze and Harry took a few weighty steps forward, brandishing his wand and ignoring the burning spiders’ shrieks. 

“You have a forest full of game, Aragog. You don’t need to eat me in order to feed your family.” Aragog made a move to trap Harry in spider silk, but reared back in shock as Harry set the silk ablaze as it appeared with little more than a gesture.

“Sorry, maybe I haven’t made myself clear,” Harry said, raising his wand again. “ _ Ardentum _ .” This time, a wall of spiders went up in flames as if internally and through their screams, Harry spoke again.

“Friend of Hagrid,” he said in mock imitation, “I won’t harm you because of Hagrid’s attachment to you, but I will extend the same offer to your friends here. I’ve just reduced your little infestation to a manageable number. You don’t need to hunt for more than what this forest can provide. You are not the monster that I’m looking for. Don’t make me kill you. As a gesture of peace, I will warn you to get your family out and away from the castle and take care of them. Now, you will let me go free.” 

Harry spun on his heel and walked out of the forest, the spiders parting like a tide of writhing bodies. He went straight to the common room and wrote a letter to Solicitor Lawson before scrambling to Myrtle’s bathroom. Tom appeared before him and Harry fixed him with a stern look.

“Why are you so intent on opening this stupid Chamber? What makes you think that running over this many people to do it is worth it?” Harry spoke calmly, but shook with barely restrained rage.

“I’m the heir of Slytherin, Potter,” Tom said, airily, “It was my duty to open up that Chamber to eliminate any threat to the school. You needn’t put on airs. I saw you torch those spiders. You enjoyed it. What I did to the students here is no different than what you did to those spiders. It was a warning. The more muggle students who got attacked, the more cautious the administration would be in handling muggle-born students.”

“I guess I can see your point. You opened the Chamber in the 40’s right? The war and the muggles’ new warfare strategies made muggle students an even greater security risk. If they ever found a way to reach Hogwarts, no amount of magic could shield the magical world from a war that big.” Harry thumbed his lower lip contemplatively.

“Yes,” Tom said slowly, genuinely surprised, “though I don’t think anyone’s agreed with me before. Usually, I have to throw in some blood purity nonsense to get people to do something about it.”

“I do agree. We’re still dealing with nuclear threats now, except killing someone in the process of warning people is like killing someone with a warning shot. It misses the point and only makes muggle-borns think of magic as a threat that can’t be left alone. You could risk discovery if a muggle-born child just up and died at school...unless it was an accident.” Harry snapped his eyes back to Tom, who’d lost his color and fixed Harry with a raptor-like gaze. He opened his mouth to speak, but Harry held up a finger to his lips, eyes snapping to the door.

“People are coming,” he said, sighing frustratedly. “We’ll speak again later. Back into the diary with you.” Tom was gone as Harry finished speaking. Mere moments later, Draco and company threw open the door.

“Potter, explain to me why you missed breakfast,” Draco said, crossing his arms across his chest.

“I’m sorry, Draco. I went to take a walk on the grounds and time got away from me.” Harry shrugged, looking helplessly to Hermione for help.

“Oh no, Potter,” she said as Draco snapped his fingers, “You’re not getting any sympathy from me.”

“That’s right, you’s on a schedule master Potty sir.” Dobby appeared at his master’s call with a plate, big enough to require the strength of both Dobby’s arms to lift, fully loaded with food.

“You haven’t been keeping up with your meals, Harry. If you skive off one more, I’m telling godfather,” Draco said. His expression softened minutely as he took in the bags under Harry’s eyes. Harry threw his hands up in mock defeat and accepted the plate from Dobby. He sat cross-legged on the floor and stuffed a forkful of eggs into his mouth. The others joined him and sprawled out on the floor, revelling in the cozy warmth and freedom of the winter holidays. Their laughter ceased briefly when a low growling overpowered the low din and it took a few seconds for everyone to register where the sound came from.

“Harry, your body didn’t know it was hungry until you gave it some food. That’s the sound of mistreated belly,” Ron said.

“You would know, Weasley. I can’t think of anyone else who can speak gut quite as well as you can,” Blaise said, winking. Ron threw a shoe at him for his cheek and had to run after it when Blaise picked it up and ran for the nearest toilet. The room erupted in laughter and Harry had to set a forkful of food down to keep himself from spitting it into Neville’s laugh.

“Oh no, Potter,” Pansy said, levitating the fork up to his face, “You’re finishing every last bite.”

“I will, I will, Pan, just give me a second,” he said, taking the fork from him. “This is enough food to feed a small country or all the house elves in the castle.” 

“Or one Weasley,” Draco joked as Ron fished his shoe out of the toilet.

 

Harry found some time to sneak away to the astronomy tower just before dinner and after an afternoon quidditch game. 

“Your love for that game disgusts me,” Tom said, appearing before Harry with a genuinely appalled expression, mouth stuck in a deep frown.

“What, you didn’t like quidditch back in your day? Not even a little?” Harry was still breathless and giddy from his game.

“No, of course not,” Tom said, smirking. “The game was beneath me. Broomsticks limit your true potential in the air. Now quidditch without broomsticks. That would be interesting.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows. “I might not know a lot of things because of my muggle upbringing, but I’m pretty sure you’re pulling my leg.”

Tom matched Harry’s expression and said, “I’m a fifty year old spirit and even I don’t use that expression anymore. No, I mean it. Flight without a broomstick. It’s horribly difficult for anybody but one with my extraordinary power to achieve.”

“How do you do it?” 

“No, don’t bother. You probably wouldn’t be able to do it. You’re, what, a second year?” Tom snorted. 

“Try me,” Harry said, arching one eyebrow. Tom studied him with a lopsided grin.

“Alright, then. Brooms ride the stream of magic like a train moves on tracks. If you can generate enough power to latch onto the stream with your own body, you don’t need a broom.” Harry smacked himself in the head.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Lack of imagination, I’m sure,” Tom mumbled. “Anyway, like I said, you probably couldn’t-” The last words died on Tom’s lips as Harry rose a few feet. A choppy wind whipped Harry’s clothes around and his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth, concentration and strain showing plainly on his face. He lasted a few moments longer before gently lowering to the floor again.

“You were saying?” Harry nailed Tom with his best shit eating grin and laughed.

“You are talented,” Tom chuckled, “but not nearly trained enough, not without a teacher.”

“What, you offering? What makes you think you can do a better job than the teachers I already have?” 

“Oh believe me, I am powerful. The things I could teach you,” he said, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“Yeah, well, I don’t trust you yet. You still haven’t told me anything useful about the Chamber.” Harry’s smile faded.

“Fine, how about another trade? I’ll tell you what happened fifty years ago if you tell me why you’re on an eating schedule.” Harry worried his lip as he leaned against the ramparts.

“You first,” Harry said defiantly. 

“Fine, as a sign of good will.” Tom settled himself against the wall next to Harry, mimicking his posture. 

“Fifty years ago, I found the Chamber on accident while I was experimenting with parseltongue. I met the basilisk inside and she listened to me because I was a descendent of Slytherin. She explained to me that Slytherin meant to scare the school into tightening security measures concerning muggle-born students. If there was a potential danger at the school, the ministry would have to better monitor and educate muggle family members or risk discovery if the magical world proved too much a threat to the muggle world. I explained the state of the world to her and we agreed that the same measures would have to be taken to prevent disaster and force the sort of radical change the magical world needed. We were only going to petrify a few more students, only until the ministry could step in to regulate the school’s admissions policies. Things went wrong when the basilisk started acting strangely. That muggle girl walked in on one of our conversations and her death ended our plans. I sealed the basilisk away and framed Hagrid to keep myself safe.”  
“I talked to Myrtle,” Harry said, “and she revealed to me what she heard when she found you. You were going to get caught. What went wrong?”

“How did you manage that?”

“I exorcised her and she gave me her memories of that night.” This earned him a skeptical look from Tom.

“Well, I don’t know what went wrong. She just sort of snapped and went crazy. She wouldn’t listen to me anymore. I thought after so many years of dormancy, she would be better and she was for a little while, but I’m losing her again.”

“So you lost control over her and that’s why you need me to help you figure out what’s wrong with her.”

“Please, Potter, I’m not incompetent,” Tom said, crossing his arms. “I have a plan. I’m certain I can fix her. I never completed the ritual that would bond her to me. I need a body in order to have full control over her mind. Since you’re a necromancer, I figure you can help me do that.” Harry thought hard.

“That means we’ll have to kill somebody, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” he said, unaffected by the thought of killing someone, “but enough about the Chamber. It’s your turn. Why do all of your friends treat you like you’re made out of glass?”

“I was...hurt in the summer and it took me a while to recover,” Harry began, haltingly.

“That’s not a proper answer, Potter. It doesn’t explain the eating schedule,” Tom said quietly. “I’ve told you a lot. You have to return the favor.” Harry looked down at his shoes.

“I didn’t get enough food growing up because my relatives, they-” Harry cut himself off.

“You said you were raised by muggles,” Tom said, dawning horror spreading on his face. Anger cracked his voice. “You were raised by muggles and they hurt you, didn’t they? They hurt you because they thought magic was unnatural.”

Harry looked at him, surprised. “How did you know? You sound like you speak from personal experience.”

“I was left at a muggle orphanage. I’m the same as you,” Tom said, still red-faced and furious. Harry grunted.

“That answer satisfy you?” Harry pushed away from the wall and made for the stairs. He didn’t wait for Tom to reply and made his way down to dinner. 


	14. The Broken Boy Ch. 14

“Turn here,” Tom said insistently in Harry’s head. Harry scoffed and turned obediently. 

“You better not be lying, Tom,” he hissed under his breath. 

“Why would I lie to you, Harry? Look, it’s just there.” 

“There’s nothing here but a wall, Tom.” 

“You’re not doing it right. You really have to think about how much you need the room. Think about your poor friend in the infirmary.” Harry was trying hard  _ not  _ to think about Hermione’s frozen form on her bed in the infirmary. The image appeared in his mind anyway and his gut flipped with the guilt. He should have told her what he knew, told her about the basilisk. She would never have been near the library researching. There was no way he could help her the way he did with Collin without implicating himself in the attacks. If all of them recovered while he was in the infirmary, it wouldn’t take long for anyone to put two and two together. His only choice was to end the attacks with his own hands. With Tom’s help, he would have to power to face the basilisk.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Harry said as the door to the Room of Requirement appeared before him. He could just imagine Tom’s snobbish grin spreading over his face. He stepped into the room and found himself standing in an expansive training room with mirror walls and training dummies.

“Not a word,” Harry said as Tom appeared before him. 

“Please, Harry, gloating is beneath me.”

“Your face says it all.” Tom merely shrugged and looked about the room.

“What is this place? Are you sure no one can find us in here?”  
“It’s an unplottable room that Hogwarts will only lend to those who absolutely need it. It’s what I call the old girl’s rebellious side. Not even Dumbledore can get in here, though I’m certain he knows about it.”

“Good. He’s been watching me too closely since the holidays ended.” It was true. Though Dumbledore made every assurance during their chat in his office that he was under no suspicion, the headmaster had suddenly appeared around every corner during his free periods.

“You called for a training room?”

“You were going to teach me, right?” 

“Yes, but I didn’t think we would reach offensive spellwork for a few weeks at least. You’re a second year, right? You can’t be past tickling hexes and I dunno,  _ incendio  _ yet.” 

Harry sighed, lifted an arm and aimed it straight at a training dummy. The dummy exploded into tiny shards of metal. Tom nodded his head and raised his eyebrows.

“My, my, you are powerful. A wandless, silent reducto.” Tom raised his own hand against another dummy and closed his fingers into a tight fist. This time, the dummy dissolved quietly and efficiently into tiny particles of dust. Harry’s eyes widened and his breathing sped up as he watched it happen. He could see how Tom’s magic infiltrated the dummy and took it apart, but he couldn’t even begin imagine how Tom had managed it.

“How’d you do that?” He turned to Tom expectantly.

“Oh the exact same things you did, except I maintained greater control over my magic. I didn’t use more power or a different spell. The intent was the same, but the execution was a more efficient use of magic. That Sight of yours, Harry. You could see everything I did?” Harry nodded, confused. 

“It’s holding you back, Harry. You can see everything, but you can’t feel it. Are you aware of exactly where your magic is going and what it’s doing? Can you track it from origin to destination? Close your eyes and try it.” Harry did as he was told and tried the spell again. Trying to locate the dummy by feel was a great deal harder and directing his magic to do as he pleased was even harder. When he finally made contact with the dummy, he found it difficult to take the dummy apart, not for lack of power, but because he couldn’t maintain the spell long enough to get through the entire dummy. When he opened his eyes again, only the dummy’s arm lay in a pile of dust on the floor. It had taken him almost five minutes.

“So your problem is stamina and focus. You’ve had it too easy with the Sight and you’re relying on it entirely too much. Come, come. Sit with me.” Tom plopped lightly onto the floor in one graceful movement and Harry followed, sitting cross legged across from him. He conjured a pile of sand in between them and closed his eyes. Harry looked at him with a boggled expression that he wiped off his face when the sand began to move. The whole mound of sand moved like water in the air and the individual particles picked themselves up, spreading themselves out until they hung in the air all around the room. Harry could see that every grain had a magical thread holding it up still and completely without motion. Tom still hadn’t moved. In the next moment, the grains of sand moved faster than even he could see and rejoined in the air between them, compressing to form a perfect sphere of solid glass. Tom opened his eyes and laughed.

“Remember to breathe, Harry.” Harry released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. They spent the next hour working on that exercise, training Harry’s stamina and focus by forcing him to hold up the sand with multiple streams of magic farther and farther away from his body. 

“Alright, you can stop before you hurt yourself,” Tom said at last. Harry dropped the sand in an ungraceful heap and flopped back onto the ground to stretch out his fatigued muscles. It was more exertion than he had to endure during quidditch practice. 

“You’ve come remarkably far considering your age,” Tom said, flopping down at Harry’s side. “You’re quite fortunate you came into your talent and suitable instruction at your age. I only wish I had your youth.”

“No you don’t,” Harry laughed. “Snape keeps telling me to tone it down because I’m too young. I burned my hand after I overdid it once. Guess he was right.”

“Ah, but he didn’t know how to teach you. It’s all about pacing. Efficiency over power. That is how to go about it. I had a similar experience when I was your age.”

“You? How?”

“Oh yes I burned all of the skin off of the palm of my hand trying to cast a particularly advanced bit of magic. I had to tell the nurse at the time that I’d touched a potions cauldron on accident. I’m surprised I got away with it.”

“That makes you sound old.”

“I’ve been sixteen for fifty years, Harry,” Tom chuckled, “I am old.”

“You’ve been asleep in the diary, though. How much do you know about how the world is now?” 

Tom shrugged, and said, “I got enough out of the minds of those two girls. In truth, not much has changed. The wizarding world tends to be that way. The Weasley girl, she was worrying about her father surviving in the ministry and she poured her heart out to me in that diary about her little crush on you.” 

“Oh no,” Harry groaned, “I hope you didn’t encourage that.”

“Don’t worry, I only said enough to possess her. The Greengrass girl was worrying about the same things. Her father was running into some trouble in the ministry and she was quite upset about having to marry another pureblood her father picked out for her. It’s all the same no matter what decade it is. It’s as if I never left.” 

 

Harry and his friends watched from afar weeks later as solicitor Lawson escorted Hagrid from castle grounds, fighting Fudge with every step.

“Minister, there is no evidence of my client’s involvement with the recent attacks on the school, nor has there ever been any evidence that he was behind the attacks from fifty years ago,” Lawson shouted. Her calm, concise voice projected as far as the sundial garden where Harry and the others hid. Fudge yelled something too mangled by his anger for any of them to make out. Hagrid only stood by looking quite scared and confused. 

“They’re suspending the headmaster too, you know,” Ron said, whimpering slightly. Beside him, Neville made a similar noise and bounced frustratedly.

“The headmaster’s the only person around here who could take on a basilisk,” he said, “and if he’s not around, the attacks are only going to get worse.”  
“Father says the board is talking about shutting down the school for inspection,” Draco said, frowning deeply.

“I don’t like it,” Pansy said, bundling herself up tighter against the wind, “and I’m scared. Let’s go back to Myrtle’s bathroom.”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Harry said too quickly. The others pinned him with a strange look. 

“Don’t you see? The pipes. Hermione tried to warn us about the pipes. Myrtle died in that bathroom because she saw the basilisk as it came out through the bathroom pipes.”

“Now that you mention it,” Draco interjected, “I haven’t seen Myrtle lately. She hasn’t made an appearance in a long time.”

“She’s scared, Draco,” Harry said. “After Nearly Headless Nick was attacked, she probably hid so she wouldn’t get caught next.” The group huddled closer together, all of them feeling Hermione’s loss just then.

 

“Wake up, Harry. Wake up!” Tom’s voice echoed deafeningly in his head. Harry sat bolt upright and he gulped, trying to keep the sick down. His head ached and his scar prickled menacingly. Tom knelt before him and cast  _ lumos,  _ creating a floating orb of light in his hand. Harry brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden bright light. Tom raised his free hand to cast privacy charms on the bed hangings in order to stifle the light and the sound of Harry’s laboured breathing. Harry’s eyes adjusted and he could see the look on Tom’s face.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” Harry drew up his knees and buried the heels of his palms into his eyes in an attempt to banish his uncle’s face from his mind. He shook himself to rid the ghost of Vernon’s meaty hands. Tom blinked and sank a little bit, unsure of what he should do or say.

“Harry, look at me,” he coaxed. “Come on, meditate with me like we always do.”

“I don’t think I can, Tom,” Harry rasped.

“Trust me.” Harry unfolded himself and met Tom’s eyes. Tom dove into Harry’s mind and helped Harry reach a meditative state and they sat together, postures mirroring each other until Harry was calm again. Harry woke the next morning, unsure of when he’d fallen asleep or how he ended up lying down under the covers. It was still early and Tom was dormant in his diary. He heard someone yelp outside and poked his head out to investigate. Ron was on the floor, glaring menacingly at his wand.

“Ron, are you alright?” Harry climbed out of his bed to help Ron to his feet.

“Yeah, this bloody wand broke again. I’ve tried everything.”

“What were you trying to cast?” 

“Lumos. You know we have a quiz today in Charms. If I can’t do the spell, Flitwick’ll flunk me. I even got up early to do it.” Harry grimaced and took Ron’s wand from him, its pieces barely holding themselves together. Ron borrowed his wand for some of his school work, but his wand didn’t work as well for Ron and his marks were lower than usual as a result. 

“Let me try fixing it again, Ron. I feel really bad about breaking it.” Harry closed his eyes and tried again to fix it, only this time, he concentrated on pulling all the pieces and the core back together down to the individual strands of magic. It wasn’t all that different than piecing together grains of sand into a glass ball. 

“Blimey, I reckon that worked,” Ron said, taking the wand from Harry’s hand. Even Harry was astonished. Ron cast the spell and whooped when its tip glowed triumphantly, shining through the gray morning sunlight. Later on in the day, Harry was allowed to leave Charms earlier than the rest of the class when he completed the quiz within the first ten minutes. He made a determined detour towards the Room of Requirement.

“Finally,” Tom said, appearing again before Harry.

“You only nagged at me to bring you here the whole time I was trying to take a test,” Harry groused.

“Oh sod it, you know you could have passed that pathetic excuse for a test with your eyes closed. I need to talk to you, Harry.”

“What about?”

“That dream you had,” he began. Harry’s face flushed with embarrassment and Tom halted. “Harry, that’s not- what I’m trying to say is that I think it might be my fault that you’re having these dreams.” Harry looked up, confused.

“No, there’s no way you could be causing any of those dreams, Tom. I’ve always slept badly. You just caught me on a bad night.”

“Harry, listen to me. I know how much energy you’re spending supporting me, allowing me to possess part of you. It’s starting to affect you.”

“I can handle it, Tom. You said yourself my stamina was getting better.”

“Yes, but that’s not all. I’m hurting you just be being here. Your scar hurts you, right? It’s because I’m-”

“Voldemort, yes,” Harry interrupted. Tom straightened, looking for the first time completely thrown off and confused. “I’ve known, Tom. I’m not stupid. Who else could have gone to Hogwarts in the 40’s, been a parselmouth, and also happen to be incredibly powerful?” Harry laughed at Tom’s expression.

“Why haven’t you tried to kill me? I’ve done horrible things to you.”

“Correction, your older, crazier self did.”

“Harry, I killed your parents. I saw in the others’ minds what I did to you, what I did to so many other people.” Harry held up a finger to stop Tom’s next words.

“Like I said, it wasn’t you, not this you, anyway.”

“I’m a-”

“A piece of a soul, yeah, I know. I’m a necromancer, remember?” Harry could tell that both he and Tom were getting annoyed, so he looked into Tom’s eyes and gave him all the knowledge he had on his soul pieces and Dumbledore’s treachery. 

“I ran into the older you last year,” Harry said as he conveyed the memories. He fished out the toy soldier from the pouch that still hung around his neck. Tom’s gaze shifted fearfully to the tiny aluminum figure.

“I don’t know what would happen if I tried to join you to this piece,” Harry said, eyes darkening with thought, “and I can’t guarantee that you wouldn’t try to kill me even if I got rid of the madness corrupting it. Your soul is a hell of a lot bigger than the piece I put in here, but I don’t know how much you would change. I only know that you would be powerful. Very powerful.”

Tom stared hungrily at the toy and he could sense part of himself beating in it, but shook his head.

“I don’t want to do it. Not yet, anyway.” Harry tucked the toy away, slightly relieved that he wouldn’t have to test out his theories right then.

“The madness I took away was unnatural,” Harry said, “as if something insanely powerful broke your mind. It probably happened when you were just starting out with the Death Eaters.”

Tom shook his head and fixed his gaze on Harry. “No, some of those things were part of my plans, Harry. I planned on killing a lot of people to split my soul. I’m not sure how many I made, but there were quite a few judging from how small you say my soul is. The Death Eaters were always part of the plan because I needed a force of radicals to scare the wizarding public into realizing the current system wasn’t working. I just don’t understand how it ended up being as senseless as the war ended up being. My Death Eaters, the ones that I trained, were not crazy, bigoted murderers. Well, they might have been murderers, but they were principled ones.”

“That’s why I’m telling you that something went wrong, like with the basilisk,” Harry insisted. “I don’t know what happened yet, but  _ something  _ really powerful, more powerful than me or you broke your mind and ruined your plans.”

“You think it was Dumbledore?”

“I don’t know, maybe, but he did a lot to me to make me distrust him.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“We shouldn’t be fighting. You wouldn’t have killed my parents if you’d been sane.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, but I’d like to believe it. I know you. You’ve been living in my head. You wouldn’t have done those things.” Harry neglected to make any mention of the prophecy.

 

A few weeks later, Ginny and Daphne went missing and the bloody message promising their deaths in the Chamber appeared on the wall. 

“I thought you were the one possessing them,” Harry hissed under his breath. He was hiding behind a corner with Draco as the teachers notified the Weasleys of their sister’s disappearance.

“I was, but the basilisk can take advantage of the psychic link I established with them. You’ve heard this hissing lately. She’s insane.” 

“Oh good Lord they’re going to trust Lockhart to save Ginny and Daphne?” Draco said from behind him. “Wait until I tell father. The ministry and a team of aurors should be handling a possible kidnapping in a school, not an incompetent teacher.”

“He’s going to run for it, I just know it,” Harry said, watching Lockhart retreat for his classroom. “Go send an owl to your father. I’ll follow Lockhart and make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid. Meet me in Myrtle’s bathroom.” He bolted after Lockhart.

“Professor, are you really going to-” Harry stopped in his tracks just inside the defense classroom when he found himself face to face with the tip of Lockhart’s wand. 

“You, Potter,” Lockhart spat, all of his charm gone and replaced by an ugly grimace, “are the reason why I’m stuck in this mess. You have humiliated me for the last time. I know you and your little group have been snooping around looking for the Chamber. You must have found it. Where is it?”

Harry only smirked and shut the door behind him, locking it with a wave of his hand. He took a few confident steps forward, not at all intimidated by Lockhart’s trembling wand. 

“I do know where the Chamber is, professor,” Harry said, getting ever closer to Lockhart. “If I showed you, what would you do to me?” 

Lockhart laughed manically and said, “I’d leave your body down there to rot while I sealed the Chamber and blamed the attacks on you, of course. You speak snake. That’s enough to convince most people it was you.” Harry laughed again and shook his head. He lifted an arm and cast a modified body bind curse.

“What are you doing?” Lockhart panicked, barely able to move his mouth. His eyes bugged out in fear and all the veins in his neck stood out with strain as he tried to free himself. Harry didn’t bother explaining anything to him. He looked into Lockhart’s soul and ripped it from his body, leaving his body an empty shell. He anchored the soul to a stray bit of chalk he found lying on Lockhart’s desk.

“You wanted a body, Tom?” Tom appeared at his side and eyed Harry with an impressed smirk.

“You didn’t kill him.” 

“No, I did something far worse. I took his soul away. Go make yourself at home.” Harry launched Tom’s soul into Lockhart’s body and released his curse. 

“Hello, Tom,” Harry said as Tom examined his new vessel. Tom smiled back and somehow, he liked the expression on Lockhart’s face better knowing it was Tom. They sprinted to the girls’ restroom and found Ron and Malfoy waiting apprehensively.

“My father went to the ministry. He’ll be back soon with all of the aurors he can muster,” Malfoy said, voice quivering in time with his shoulders.

“Professor Lockhart, are you sure you can take this thing on?” Harry turned to Tom and gave him a meaningful look. Harry hissed suddenly and fell to his knees, hand clutching his scar. 

“Harry! What’s wrong, mate,” Ron stammered. Tom took a handful of Harry’s cloak and wrenched him to his feet before leveling his wand at Ron and Malfoy.

“Lockhart isn’t here, boy,” Tom spat convincingly. “Bow before your lord, the heir of Slytherin.” Before either of them could react, Tom knocked them out with stunners. He released Harry and shrugged, ignoring Harry’s raised eyebrows.

“Bow before your lord?”

“What else was I supposed to say? Muahaha I’m Voldemort?” Harry rolled his eyes,

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tom and Harry stood together in front of the chamber door.

“I am. I’m ready.” Tom nodded and hissed. The locks groaned as the long unused bolts slid back and the door swung open.

“Keep your eyes to the ground. I’ll try to talk to her. If it doesn’t work, you need to take the girls and run.” Harry didn’t like the tone of Tom’s voice.

“You have to promise me you’ll follow the plan,” Harry said, fisting a hand in Tom’s robes. “You get close enough to land a killing blow and you get out of Lockhart’s body before her fangs get you.”

“Trust me.” Harry’s fingers lost their grip and Tom stepped resolutely through the portal. Harry followed, regretting every step he took. They walked briskly through the enormous chamber, flanked by sculptures of snakes, in a grim procession. 

“I found this place in my second year,” Tom said over his shoulder, “and it was like my very own private sanctuary. The basilisk was my friend and she knew me.”

“I’m sorry we have to kill her.” Tom looked back at him with sad eyes.

“I’m sorry you had to be here.” They came to a stop in front of Daphne and Ginny. Both lay petrified in front of a giant statue of Salazar Slytherin. They held each other as they never imagined they would, expressions frozen in fear. 

“I’m here. Please come out,” Tom hissed. Slytherin’s mouth opened and the snake slid out with its eyes closed.

“My child. You return at last.” The basilisk’s raspy voice echoed around the chamber. “Your wear a different skin, but I know my child.”

“I found a body, Lady,” Tom said softly as a child would speak to his mother. “These girls need to go home.” The basilisk’s head wavered back and forth.

“They cannot. I brought them for you, child. Take their flesh and be whole again.”

“Stop this,” Tom pleaded. “This does nothing. I found a body. We don’t have to do this.” The basilisk continued to writhe. 

“They must die. The killing must continue. Take their blood, their flesh, their souls. Take them apart.” 

“I will not. You will obey. Please.”

“If you will not take them, then I will make you take them.” She lunged. 

“Harry, go!” Tom cast a powerful stunner that pushed the basilisk back a few feet. Harry levitated the girls and ran for the entrance. Outside of the portal, he set them down and ran back against his own instincts for Tom. What he saw dismayed him. The basilisk had Tom pinned to his back on the floor and his wand lay covered in blood just beyond his reach. Tom had managed to gore the basilisk’s eyes. 

“Hey ugly!” Harry hissed, flinging a cutting curse at her belly. She hissed in pain and released Tom from her considerable weight, whipping her tail in the direction of Harry’s voice. The end of her tail made contact and her scales cut into Harry’s side as he turned to run. Harry spun in the air and landed hard, face first onto the ground. He scrambled to his feet and shuffled backwards as the basilisk advanced on him. The moisture on the chamber floor made the marble slick and Harry could find no purchase. He fell with his wand pointed defensively in front of him. He could hear Tom screaming frantically for Harry to run as he assaulted the basilisk from behind. 

Harry gave up on his wand after several cutting curses failed to make more than superficial cuts to the basilisk’s face and instead started shooting incendiary curses with his bare hands. The fire sizzled as it met the basilisk’s flesh and the sickening stench of burned flesh filled Harry’s nostrils. He fired dozens of curses, but the basilisk continued her slow advance towards him. She reached him and reared up to strike when suddenly, a warm and heavy body blocked her from view and a sickening wetness dripped onto his face. He looked up to find Tom’s body shielding him protectively from the basilisk’s fangs, which protruded from his shoulder. Tom grunted and cast a point blank blasting curse at the basilisk’s snout, dislodging its fangs from his shoulder.

Harry’s breath came in short huffs. His body couldn’t decide whether it wanted to cry or scream. Tom slumped to the ground with a thud and Harry realized Tom wouldn’t be able to get out of Lockhart’s body in time. He scrambled to Tom’s side and searched desperately for Tom’s soul, grasping for it before it could leave him. Harry couldn’t tell how long he sat holding Lockhart’s prone form, keeping him alive, keeping Tom tethered. His efforts were rewarded with the shredded remains of Tom, which he held delicately in his hands. The soul was all there, but weak and structurally compromised. From his robes, Harry produced the tiny soldier. He merged the two horcruxes together hastily and glued the pieces back together. Tom screamed and his soul surged from Lockhart’s body, a mass of confusion and anger. Harry couldn’t hold him long enough to anchor him to anything and Tom’s soul flew away in a blur. Harry was alone.

“My child,” the basilisk keened. Harry started, whipping his head around to find that the thing was still alive, if only just. Harry stood on wobbly legs and clutched at the gash on his side. He limped to the basilisk in a rage and fired any curse he could think of at it. The basilisk grew more incensed with every curse and charged at him. She knocked Harry off of his feet again a few feet away and started advancing on him again. Harry struck his arms out trying to get up again when his fingers found something soft and leathery. It was the sorting hat with the hilt of a sword glinting in the dim light of the chamber. The sword he saw in Dumbledore’s office. Above him, Fawkes the phoenix trilled his song and ignited a pool of burning rage in Harry’s stomach. Dumbledore’s bird, Dumbledore’s sword. He knew where Harry was, knew what he was confronting, and sent a bird and a sword. 

Harry grasped the sword in his too-small hand, his blood settling into the grooves of its hilt, and flung it away from him. He stood and stalked towards the basilisk, his blood roaring in his ears. The basilisk struck out and embedded her fangs in Harry’s shoulder. He stuck the length of his arm down her throat and sent a destructive cyclone of magic down the length of her body, eviscerating her internal organs as it went. He kept rigorous control over his magic as it went and took apart everything. The basilisk writhed and shrieked once before it stilled and flopped unmoving to the floor, taking Harry with it. The fangs slid away and Harry cried out for the first time, all of the pain hitting him at once. Above him, Fawkes glided to his side and looked at him disapprovingly, as if to say, “You should have taken the sword.”

“You must feel like this all the time,” Harry said, clenching his teeth against the burn of the venom. “You’ve died so many times. This must be a cakewalk for you.” He could feel the blood pooling in his lungs.

Fawkes bent his head and cried, leaking warm tears into the wounds. Fawkes’s magic cut away the venom like mighty warriors, but could only do so much. His wounds stayed open and bled, but he would live. Harry laughed weakly and rolled onto his knees. He crawled slowly to Lockhart’s body and fished the chalk from his pockets.

_ Tie his soul to his body. To put a soul back into its body long after it has gone is to create a soldier. He will be strong and he will be ruthless. He will obey.  _

Harry forced Lockhart’s soul back into his dead body and it lurched, convulsing as its skin blackened and shrunk against its bones. Lockhart’s face turned sallow and his eyes snapped open in fear.

“What have you done to me?” His voice rasped as if from another world.

“Go find Voldemort and help him. Obey him and protect him.” Lockhart went rigid and stood with more strength than he ever had in life. He left the chamber and Harry slumped to the floor, awake long enough to watch his retreating footsteps.


	15. The Broken Boy Ch. 15

15.

 

    Snape worried the hem of his robes as the aurors dropped one by one into the hole under the sinks in the abandoned girls’ lavatory. He shared a fearful glance with Lucius, whose own stoic public face was frayed at the edges. They waded through the labyrinth that wound through the underbelly of Hogwarts and Severus’s eyes widened at the sight of the massive skin that the basilisk left in the carrion that surrounded him. How could anybody have missed this? The staff followed as the aurors cleared each antechamber and motioned for them to follow. At last, they reached the main chamber and McGonagall and an auror rushed to examine the two girls they found at the entrance.

“Alive,” McGonagall said, sighing heavily with relief.

“Where’s Harry?” Severus’s uncharacteristically worried voice cut off the relieved murmurs floating around the room. 

“I’ve got him!” an auror shouted from within the main chamber. “Someone with medical training get over here and hurry!” The team had gone in and fanned out to make sure they were in no danger from the basilisk. Fawkes, who’d remained at Harry’s side, chirped and caught their attention. Severus’s stomach dropped as he approached the auror who’d spoken. The basilisk lay mere feet from the limp figure the auror was stooped over. 

“It’s him. Bloody hell, did he kill that thing himself?” the auror cursed, taking his hat off from where he was trying to staunch the bleeding as Severus shoved him out of the way. Gently, Snape peeled away Harry’s robes and found puncture wounds in his shoulder. A disconcerting gurgling sound came quietly with every breath Harry took. 

“He’s been bitten,” Severus cried. Beside him, Fawkes nudged his arm, giving him a meaningful look.

“You gave him tears?” Fawkes nodded. “Can you give him any more?” The bird shook his head, nodding towards Harry’s grievous wound.

“You’ve given all you can and it wasn’t enough to heal it,” Snape said in understanding as he hastily pulled potions from his robes and dumped them on the wound to make the blood clot and start the healing. Fawkes nodded vigorously.

“I don’t see any more traces of venom,” Snape said when the work was done. The potion worked its way down through to Harry’s lungs and mended the wounds there. Harry coughed violently, expelling the blood from his lungs, though he remained unconscious. His torso bucked from the pain and trauma before flopping motionless to the floor. Snape pressed a finger to Harry’s neck and found a strong pulse.

“That’s a good lad,” he hissed with relief. “Thank God.” Gingerly, he spelled bandages over the worst of the wounds and levitated him off of the grimy chamber floor.

Harry woke with a sharp intake of breath and sat bolt upright in bed. Pain blossomed in his body that took away his breath and held him there, curled in tightly on himself, until calloused hands pushed him gently down into the pillows and held him until the pain left. He lay there panting, staring up at the too-white ceiling of the hospital wing and wondered how he’d gotten there. Then, he felt the hollow space in his mind that Tom used to occupy and the memories crashed down on him in a ceaseless current that swept him unwillingly along. He was too numb even to cry and though he knew Tom would be safe, that he would have Lockhart’s corpse to help him, Harry couldn’t help but feel the loss gnaw at his gut. Dimly, he heard someone shouting something and he only wanted it to be quiet so that he could think and be alone. The one calloused hand returned and tenderly touched his cheek, delicately tracing the wounds there as if they would disappear with every stroke. Harry turned his head slightly and followed the hands to their owner. Snape sat sullenly in a chair by his bed looking as if he’d been crying for days and hadn't slept in that time. His face brought Harry back to the present and he squeezed Snape’s hand with as much strength as he could muster. 

    “Hey,” he rasped, opening a wound on his lips as he tried to smile weakly at Snape. 

    “Shh… Just rest, Harry,” Snape said, taking Harry’s hand in both of his own.

    “Are the others hurt? Voldemort, he-”

    “Everyone is fine except for  _ you,  _ Harry,” Snape said brokenly, his brow furrowing sadly. Harry took a few moments to examine himself. He lay shirtless with most of his torso swathed in endless yards of linen bandages, splotches of blood the only telltale signs of the wounds that lay beneath. His wand hand was wrapped to treat the burns caused by his frantic casting. Under the thick woolen blankets, his left leg felt all wrong and he realized that in the confusion, his ankle must have broken and Madame  Pomfrey mended it he slept, though incompletely. Of all his mostly healed wounds, the most grievous was the one that the basilisk’s fangs made in his upper chest. He could breathe, so his lungs had clearly been mended, but he could still feel the pain and stiff, swollen unresponsiveness where muscle was impaled and torn.

    “How long have you been here?” Harry felt like his mouth was full of cotton balls.

    “Since I brought you here from the chamber,” Snape said, still holding Harry’s hand.

    “How long ago was that?”

     “Three days. You've been asleep three days.”

    “How did you find me?” Harry couldn't remember if he left the chamber door open.

    “Voldemort left the chamber passage open in his haste to flee the castle. Harry, the state you were in...I almost lost you again. I knew there was something off about Lockhart.”

     Feigning ignorance, Harry asked, “So he was possessed?” Snape nodded, clenching his jaw.

    “He stormed out of the castle before anyone could stop him. We thought Lockhart had just decided to run away and got out before anyone realized he was gone. It wasn't until Draco and Weasley came to me for help that we realized you were in the chamber. Lucius showed up with a team of aurors and we found you and the girls in the chamber.”

    The privacy curtain around his bed swished open, revealing Healer Smethwyck and Madame Pomfrey, both trying to squeeze their way past each other.

“You’re awake!” Smethwyck shoved Poppy aside unceremoniously and started handing him potions, all the while casting diagnostic charms. 

“Oh goodness we were worried you wouldn’t come out of it this time,” Poppy sobbed into her apron.

“Yes, you are one of the very first people in centuries to encounter a basilisk and live,” Smethwyck said breathlessly reading the data that appeared before him. 

“I’ll publish these findings in my next article and we will finally have definitive methods to treat basilisk bites.” Smethwyck swooned a little bit, thinking of the possibilities. He looked over and saw Harry and Snape wearing matching puzzled expressions, eyes flitting from hysterical mediwitch to the equally hysterical mediwizard. Smethwyck cleared his throat and placed a hand gently on Harry’s shoulder.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you are alive, Harry.”

For the next few hours, the hospital wing received a slow trickle of visitors regulated by Madame Pomfrey.

“Only one group at a time please,” she said to the crowd that waited by the door, “Harry needs his rest. He’s only just woken up.”

The very first people allowed in were his family. Lucius lead his wife in quietly while Draco trailed behind them, trembling. To preserve his modesty, Harry put on his pajama top, though it remained unbuttoned so that Madame Pomfrey and Smethwyck could monitor his bandages. They talked of how his recovery would fit into the rest of the school year and how they could make things more comfortable for him back home. Draco’s eyes flickered back and forth between his hands and the bandage peeking out from Harry’s shirt as the adults spoke. Smethwyck and Madame Pomfrey lead the Malfoys away and left Draco sitting at the foot of Harry’s bed. 

“We keep meeting like this,” Harry said, laughing weakly. Draco floundered a little bit before he sighed and thwacked Harry playfully on the shin.

“Yeah, I really think Madame Pomfrey might make good on that promise. I’ll put in a good word for you with Father and I think we can get you your own ward in here.” Draco tried to keep his voice steady, but it broke once as he spoke. His smile was forced and never reached his eyes. 

“Hey, come here,” Harry said, scooting to one side so that Draco could climb in and sit with him. Draco toed his shoes off and gingerly climbed into bed on Harry’s uninjured side, legs still dangling off of the side of the bed. They slung one arm each companionably around each other’s shoulders.

“Want to talk about it?” Draco asked cautiously after a while. Harry shrugged.

“What else is there to tell? Voldemort lost control of the basilisk and it went after him, so he ran away and I killed it. I was more afraid you and Ron were dead.”

“Harry, the only person who was really hurt after all of this was  _ you.  _ You’re obviously more bothered about this than you’re letting on. Stop putting on a brave face and tell me what happened.” 

Harry made sure no other magical energy signatures were about and whispered, “Dumbledore sent Fawkes to me in the Chamber.”

“We know. Father reported Fawkes’s presence to the board. The ministry’s launched a full investigation into Dumbledore’s affairs.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Why? He’ll be sacked within the day.”

“What can the investigation really do? There’s no real proof that he knew where I was or where the Chamber was. He could say that Fawkes went to the Chamber on his own and no one in the ministry could say anything.” 

Draco huffed frustratedly and held onto Harry a little bit tighter. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does,” Harry huffed back.

 

Harry limped cautiously into Gryffindor common room a few days after he woke in the hospital wing. Exams were cancelled and he wanted out from the hospital wing, so there was nothing Madame Pomfrey could do except let him go. The second the portrait swung closed behind him, he was met with the shocked faces of Ron and Hermione, who’d been unpetrified before he woke. 

“Harry,” Hermione breathed, scuttling to help him into a chair, “what are you doing out of the hospital wing?”

“I told them I was fine,” he said, returning Hermione’s embrace, “and Madame Pomfrey let me out.” Ron pulled up another chair and sat on Harry’s other side. They sat together talking, Ron and Hermione asking after Harry’s health and Harry asking after theirs. Slowly, the other Gryffindors trickled out of their rooms to gather quietly around the quietly conversing trio. While most of them pretended to be doing other things around the common room, a few, including a teary Ginny, came up shyly to shake his hand and utter a quiet thank you. Harry accepted them with his good hand and awkwardly smiled up into each face, though he could only maintain a few seconds of eye contact before he felt too awkward. Harry received the same treatment everywhere he went from almost everyone he came across and it was driving him bonkers. He gave up on lunch the next day and decided to head straight for the Room of Requirement. Draco and Pansy cornered him outside the Great Hall and directed him outside.

“What are you doing?” Harry limped along without protest with Draco’s hand at his elbow.

“Shut up and follow us, Potter,” Pansy called playfully over her shoulder. They led him to the clearing in the sundial garden where Ron, Hermione, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise, and Neville sat waiting for him.

“We thought you needed some time off from people being absolutely stupid,” Draco said. The group, headed by Blaise and Neville, made their way to Hagrid’s hut, where Harry was surprised by Hagrid’s return and a less than bone crushing hug on account of his injuries. Crabbe and Goyle stood guard at the hut’s entrance and Harry felt for once that he was experiencing a semblance of normalcy.

 

Harry was right about the investigation coming up with nothing on Dumbledore. Solicitor Lawson dropped by to brood in the Malfoy house, head leant tiredly against her fist, her elbow rested on the dining table. Her other hand nursed a tumbler of firewhiskey.

“It’s called plausible deniability,” she sighed, “and it’s no surprise that Dumbledore got away with saying he had no idea what Fawkes was doing in the Chamber. Poor Fawkes. This must be an insult to that bird’s intelligence.”

“Don’t feel bad, Lawson,” Narcissa said, replacing her tumbler with a teacup, “the board managed to reprimand him for not taking appropriate action against a threat like a basilisk. The second one of those children turned up petrified, he should have shut down the school and dealt with the basilisk himself. If he’s so powerful, he should have been the one dealing with the deadliest creature in the magical world, not a twelve year old.” Narcissa’s fingertips turned white against the glass of Solicitor Lawson’s half empty tumbler, though her posture and expression showed no such strain. Harry and Draco watched the exchange awkwardly from the other end of the table, still trying to finish breakfast.

“Yes, well,” Lucius said, folding up his paper to break the awkward silence that followed, “the ministry and the board will take up more responsibilities regarding the school’s safety and I’ll be heading the committee appointed to sweeping the school for dangerous artifacts. We’re also looking into what happened last year. Hogwarts is a school and not a safe house. The Philosopher’s stone should never have been placed in the castle. The officials in charge of monitoring Nicholas Flamel and the Stone resigned shortly after the stone moved to Gringotts. No paper trail remains on how Dumbledore managed to move such a highly regulated magical artifact on the hunch that Voldemort would return and yet here we are.”

“Yes, and the media hasn’t dared to write anything about Voldemort because the only witnesses are minors,” Lawson huffed, taking a sip of her tea and grimacing when it did not taste of firewhiskey. She pulled out a small flask and spiked her mug with a suspicious looking amber liquid.

“Oh please, Narcissa, I need this,” she said at Narcissa's raised eyebrow. “Ministry trials are awful.” The fact that no one in the room dared to mention the newspapers’ reluctance to call “The Boy Who Lived” a liar was not lost on Harry. 

The summer began with open invitations sent to all of Harry and Draco’s friends to visit the manor while Harry recuperated. All of his wounds were about healed, but the wounds in his shoulder, though closed, remained stubbornly inflamed and would inevitably leave a scar. All of Harry’s scars kept him awake and he took to walking the manor grounds early in the morning so that he would tire himself out enough to force himself to sleep. He was sure at least Narcissa knew about his insomnia, but only because the house elves never tried to rouse him after he finally fell asleep. Oddly enough, however, Harry’s curse scar had taken to maintaining a mild burning sensation ever since the Chamber and it took all of Harry’s concentration to keep it from bothering him. One morning, Harry strolled out into the manor gardens, hand absently massaging his scar. He was utterly alone on account of the hour and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice call out his name from behind a hedge. Harry didn’t answer, but flicked his wand into his hand from its holster before turning a corner and leveling his wand at whoever had called him. The sight before him shocked him to his bones as if someone had shot him in the sternum. As his wand clattered to the floor, Harry tried desperately to convince himself that the ghostly figure before him was a hallucination.

“Mum?” he said in a fearful whisper. The shade of Lily Potter smiled, though her eyes remained closed, and shook her head. She wore the clothes she died in and her skin was ashen as it might have been in death, but Harry wasn’t bothered because all he could see was his mother. His first instinct was to run to her, but Lily held up a hand and spoke.

“Calm, child,” she said. Her voice was both what he imagined it would sound like and a familiar mixture of many voices.

“Legion? Why?” Harry sat down numbly in the grass, fingers curling limply around his wand. The shade knelt in front of him, still smiling.

“We apologize. It was not our intent to harm,” it said as it did when he was a child. “We took this form because we believed it would be suitable for our task.”

“What task?”

“To instruct. You have come very far and your powers with the dead have reached a level that requires further instruction. When you made your first revenant, we deemed it necessary to begin your training.”

“Why my mother?”

“We sensed you would prefer it. She is with us as you are and always have been,” Legion replied as stoically as ever. 

“What are you going to teach me?”

“We will teach you to manipulate and communicate with the dead. You have done well so far in releasing the girl spirit, but there is much you can learn.” The shade held up a hand and a rabbit appeared from behind a bush. With a gesture, the rabbit was dead. Harry’s eyes widened minutely at the morbid sight, but he knew what he had to do. He looked closer at the rabbit with the Sight and found that the soul’s connection with the body had been cut, killing the rabbit without any apparent physical cause.

“This is how the  _ avada kedavra  _ curse functions, by tearing the soul away from the body,” the shade said, still smiling.

“I did that to Lockhart, didn’t I?” 

“You did, but when you put back what you took, what happened?” The shade made another gesture and the rabbit’s soul reattached itself seamlessly to its body. The rabbit was at once well again, nibbling at the grass at Harry’s feet.

“He turned into a monster,” Harry replied, tentatively reaching out to touch the rabbit. 

“Two things affect how a vessel will react to moving a soul,” Legion said, tilting its head. “The first is the state of the body and the second is the removal. If the body is beyond saving, any soul forced back into it will turn it into a revenant. If the body is well, but the soul is torn imperfectly, the same will occur. Perfect reanimation requires that both the body be pristine and the soul be neatly torn.” 

“My brain hurts,” Harry said, looking uneasily at the rabbit. “How am I supposed to tear away a soul neatly?” Legion said nothing, but waved invitingly at the rabbit.

“Are you serious? What if I mess up and end up with a bloody rabid revenant rabbit on my hands? Mrs. Malfoy will kill me.” Legion said nothing again and tilted its head. Shaking his head, Harry decided to give it a go anyhow. Looking into the rabbit’s soul, he imagined slicing the soul’s threads with a scalpel and imitated Legion’s slicing gesture. In an instant, the rabbit was dead and Harry could sense the decay gripping the body already. He stuck the soul back into the body quickly after, hoping the thing wouldn’t spring to life and attack him. To his astonishment, the rabbit got back up and hopped away as if nothing happened. He whooped in triumph and thumped his chest to get his heart to stop beating so hard. Legion only raised another hand where a sparrow flew down to perch and Harry came to the sickening realization that he would have to do it again. 

“Again?”  Legion nodded unsympathetically, still smiling. Harry groaned and got to work. When the fog cleared from the early morning sky, Legion finally let Harry stop after he’d reanimated four more rabbits, a door mouse, and six different birds. Only the mouse came back wrong and Legion made him remove the soul and disintegrate the body. 

“You have progressed well. We are pleased,” Legion said, rising from where it sat. Harry followed and stretched out his cramped legs. His limbs creaked and his eyes felt strained, but the morning’s accomplishments curled deliciously in his stomach, making him giddy. Legion smiled in parting as if amused by Harry’s pride and quietly dissolved into the morning sunlight.

_ We will return when the day is new again,  _ it whispered in Harry’s head. Still far too giddy to go to sleep, Harry decided it was best to make his way back to his bedroom anyhow to avoid running into a house elf. When he reached his room, however, his bed looked as unappealing as it did when he left for his walk and he decided instead to resume his meditations, something he’d fallen behind on since Tom’s departure. He plopped down on the hardwood floors in the middle of his spacious room and produced the glass orb he’d taken to carrying around with him. It was one that Tom had formed himself during one of their meditation sessions and Harry pocketed it absently, unaware that it would be the only physical evidence of his time with Tom. 

Harry closed his eyes and levitated the ball with the tendrils of his magic out into the space in front of him. With one thought, the orb dissolved slowly into hundreds of grains of sand that looped and whirled about the room at Harry’s whim. The room wasn’t quite as large as the room of requirement, but Harry experimented with hovering various grains of sand over the furniture, coating it like spray paint. At some point, he noticed that he had an audience and decided it was time for his exercises to conclude for the morning. Harry opened his eyes and in an instant, the sand reformed into the glass orb at a point between his outstretched hands, catching it in his right hand as he released the spell. Turning to the presence at the doorway, Harry feigned surprise at the sight of an astonished Lucius Malfoy, still dressed in his robe with his back pressed against the door.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Harry started, “I didn’t see you there. Good morning.” The words tumbled effortlessly from his mouth and his smile easy to form on his lips. Speaking to Lucius was always more pleasant than he anticipated because Harry was always keenly aware that the man saved him from the Dursleys and welcomed him into his home. 

“Good morning to you as well, Mr. Potter,” Lucius said gamely, padding over to help Harry to his feet. “I was awake earlier than usual and decided to check up on you. Narcissa’s told me that you haven’t been sleeping very well.” 

He lead him to the window seat and helped him settle into the padded leather before taking a graceful seat himself. Ever since returning to the manor, the Malfoy’s had subjected Harry to quite a lot of sitting because of his injuries.

“May I?” Lucius asked, gesturing to the orb. Harry held it out to him in an open palm and Lucius plucked it from his hand with two fingers, inspecting it closely.

“Where did you learn to do that, if I might ask?” Lucius said, shifting his gaze to Harry.

“At school,” he replied, suddenly squeamish. “Professor Quirrell taught it to me, said it would help me with my spellwork.” Again, it wasn’t  _ really  _ a lie. Lucius arched an eyebrow.

“Quirrell? Interesting, considering the circumstances,” he said, tossing the orb from one hand to the other.

“I know,” Harry said, scratching his chin, “and that’s why I didn’t tell anybody about it. You’re the only one who’s ever seen me doing it.”

“I feel exceptionally privileged,” Lucius said, smirking, “though I have seen this exercise before. It brought back many memories watching you. Not very many can manage it.”

“Really?” Harry asked, genuinely surprised. “Where did you see it?” The corners of Lucius’s mouth turned downwards for a split second as he handed the orb back to Harry.

“Harry,” he began, scooting around as if trying to find a more comfortable position on the seat, “you know that I used to be a death eater.”

“Yes, but you were under the imperius, or at least that’s what happened at your trial.”

Lucius looked down at Harry, eyes sad. “Well yes, but I wasn’t. I chose to be one at first, but when things got more...violent, I decided that I would do what was best for my family and feign innocence. I joined at first because I thought we were making a better world for magic and I never imagined the death eaters would cause a war. I thought you deserved to know that I joined by choice.”

Harry was taken aback by this admission and gaped at Lucius for a few seconds before a smile broke out onto his face. 

“You’re not angry,” Lucius stated, rather than asked, torn between smiling and frowning.

“Oh no of course not,” Harry said hastily, “I’m just happy, is all. Thank you for telling me, Mr. Malfoy. Ever since you saved me from the Dursleys, people have tried to persuade me that you were a bad person because you were a death eater. What you just told me proves that you’re not. I’m confused, sir. What does that have to do with the exercise?”

“Well, the only person I ever saw pull off that particular meditation ritual was the dark lord,” Lucius said, his eyes taking on a rather far away look, “and I don’t know if I ever came across anything like that ever again. I walked in on him while he was meditating and he tried to teach it to me once. I did so poorly that he ejected me bodily from the room.” Lucius shuddered. Harry struggled not to smile thinking that sounded like something Tom would do. In the same thought, he remembered that Tom was gone and Harry’s gut twinged at the memories.

“Can I see it? Your mark,” Harry asked Lucius tentatively. Lucius’s eyes widened with surprise, but he complied, rolling up his robe to expose a bright red tattoo that looked rather a lot like it hurt. Harry noticed for the first time that he’d never actually seen Lucius’s arms because they were always covered, he realized, to conceal the mark. Gently, Harry traced the mark with his fingers, examining the magic behind it. It was a novel thing that somehow tied itself Lucius’s magical core. The magical energy signature was a closer match to the older Voldemort and Harry could see lines of madness coloring the magic. Inwardly, he shook his head. It was a masterful use of magic, but he could see that the mark latched on Lucius’s magical core and leeched power from it in order to channel it to its master when called. If the need ever arose, Lucius could be leeched dry like a living battery. Such a crude and desperate safety measure bespoke paranoia and weakness that Harry could not place with the Tom he knew. Experimentally, Harry pressed a little harder into the mark with his fingers and used his magic to gently untangle the mark’s magic from Lucius’s core. Before he fully realized what he was doing, the mark dissolved from Lucius’s skin in a soft wisp of blackened miasma, leaving his forearm whole and new again. Lucius jerked once and his body stiffened and trembled as he pulled his arm away from Harry. 

“How,” he said at last, staring unbelievingly at the blank slate of alabaster skin where the source of so many of his troubles once lay, “did you- Did you do this?” Harry shrugged, playing innocent until the last.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, “I just sort of thought you would be happier if it was gone and it was.” This wasn’t really a lie at all because even he couldn’t explain how he’d done it. Lucius gaped at him as close as a Malfoy can get to a gape, which made Harry giggle. In a move that shocked even Lucius himself, he leaned forward to embrace Harry briefly and gently. Harry didn’t know how to return the gesture at first, but wrapped both arms loosely around Lucius’s back. It was the closest he’d ever been to Lucius and he could smell the sweet smelling cologne Lucius wore as well as the detergent the elves used. After a while, Lucius straightened and smiled at him, still slightly dazed.

“Excuse me, Harry. I simply must show Narcissa.” With one more companionable one armed embrace, Lucius went gracefully out the door. Harry climbed back into his bed and, with the overwhelming warmth of his accomplishments curling his toes, fell asleep quite easily for the first time in many weeks. The elves allowed him his rest well past noon.


	16. The Broken Boy Ch. 16

****

16.

 

Harry woke slowly and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at the unfamiliar green canopy above his head. Sitting up groggily, he was met with a very giddy looking Draco straddling a chair in front of his bed. 

“Surprise!” Draco exclaimed, throwing both hands up in the air. Harry whipped his head around and found himself in a completely different room than the one he fell asleep in.

“What’s all this, then?” he asked, grinning like mad.

“Well after what you did for father, he decided to finish the new wing of the mansion all at once because he was so excited. I’ve never seen him this energetic. The elves started work on it while we were away at school, but he did all the wall coverings and furniture while you slept. Isn’t it wonderful?” 

“How did you get me here?” The bed was definitely different than the one he fell asleep in and he couldn’t remember moving as he slept.

“Let me tell you, it was a feat,” Draco said, looking pleased with himself, more so than usual. “Since you are such a light sleeper, father had to levitate the entire bed and transfigure it once we got here. I thought you were going to blast our heads off on accident, but you were so tired, I don’t think anything short of an earthquake could have woken you up. I’ve been waiting for ages for you to wake up, come on!”

Harry hopped out of bed as quickly as he could without jolting his shoulder and wandered around his new wing of the mansion, following Draco as he practically skipped ahead of him. The hangings and wall coverings matched the rest of the house, but Harry’s wing was lit with much more natural light, with every wall containing at least one enormous window. His new bedroom was topped by a glass dome shaded by the leaves of poplar trees through which light filtered gently into the room. He didn’t have to ask to know that the light was a loving touch so that he would never have to think about his cupboard ever again. Harry could reach Draco’s wing of the house by walking the short distance through an atrium carpeted with new grass and practically shimmering with the light bouncing from the water from a bubbling fountain mounted against the far east wall. 

“I love magic,” Harry breathed, staring out one of the enormous windows. 

“I knew you’d love it.”

“Just one thing,” Harry said mischievously. He snapped his fingers and the drapes on his bed shuddered and turned red and gold. 

“Oh ew,” Draco said, wrinkling his nose, “That makes your room look like a badly themed Christmas sweater.” Harry shrugged.

“That’s why you’re the fashionable one and I’m the one who gives into my Gryffindor tendencies,” he said, laughing at the disgust that spread through Draco’s face as he picked at the red curtains with two fingers.

 

Harry trained with Legion every morning that summer. Though he rose before the sun, Harry was thankful for the distraction and his dreams stayed away for a while. After a few weeks, Hippocrates gave him a clean bill of health. He was so happy, he started jogging one enormous lap around the manor grounds every morning. One morning as he passed by a ground floor window, Draco sat waiting on the window sill, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

“What are you doing? Healer Smethwyck patches you up and you immediately start running yourself ragged?” Draco’s eyebrows knitted themselves together the same way they did that day Harry collapsed in the lavatory.

Harry stopped to catch his breath and waved his hands helplessly. “I’m just so tired of being tired, Draco. I’ve been either asleep or too injured to move around since the summer started and I wanted a change.” Draco sniffed and jumped the few feet onto the grass. Harry hadn’t even noticed Draco’s athletic clothing.

“What?” A smile spread across Harry’s face.

“You think I’m going to let you do this all by yourself?” Draco stretched, clearly not explaining any more. Harry shrugged and ran a little to catch up to Draco, who’d run off without him. Every other day, the Malfoys paid the Weasleys a visit so that the children could play quidditch together. The summer passed like this for Harry, always warm, always sweaty, always revelling in the energy his body now possessed. When the Weasleys won enough coin to make a trip to Egypt, the Malfoys followed them and Harry got the chance to meet Bill Weasley.

“This tomb was built for a magical Egyptian artisan,” Bill said as he lead the children into a tomb he had yet to clear, “and the curses here were cast to protect the valuables that his family placed for him so that when his soul came back for his body, he would be surrounded by the things he loved in life. Gringotts has interest in these tombs because the descendants of these people as well as the Egyptian magical government want to reclaim artifacts or bodies to protect them better than old timey curses.”

“Wicked,” Ron said, waving around a torch. “Do you reckon he actually came back from the dead?”

“Ronald, really,” Draco said, nudging him playfully, “are you really going to try and give yourself nightmares by believing that?” Fred and George took this opportunity to jump Ron and scare him into dropping his torch. They fist bumped Draco. 

“What curses?” Harry was busy scanning the walls for the magical currents running through them. They were old, very old, and he could see that they fed off of the ambient magic of the environment, storing the magical energy in the rocks themselves much like a charm or a rune.  _ This place could not house a spirit,  _ Legion said,  _ but they did try to understand, to communicate. We remember this. _

 “This is a middle-ish class tomb,” Bill said, magically lighting the room with a casual flick of his wand. “The curses are most likely low-risk, anti-burglary curses because the valuables in here aren’t worth very much. I already disarmed the one at the front door, which is usually the most dangerous. You buggers didn’t think I would have brought you here if it was actually dangerous, did you? Mum would have killed me. Scratch that, pretty boy’s mum would have killed me.” The children's’ laughs bounced around the carved walls of the tomb. Bill went farther into the tomb first and disarmed the treasury so that the kids could explore in there. While the others prodded at mummified cats and antique furniture, Harry followed quietly behind Bill as he worked his way into the burial vault. 

“Harry, I can hear you breathing,” Bill chuckled, turning around swinging his arms with easy swagger. Harry trotted to catch up with him.

“Sorry,” he breathed, scratching his head.

“Nah, it’s fine. Just stay behind me and try not to touch the walls.” Concern touched Bill’s voice only slightly. Though it was dark, Harry could tell that Bill’s shoulders were tensed just slightly and he looked over them often to check on him. Every now and then, he would stop, methodically sweep the space in front of him with his wand, and continue. Harry saw that Bill cast something like a web of magic in front of him and when something dangerous got caught in it, he would stop to unravel it methodically like a rubix cube and keep going. Bill was so preoccupied with Harry, however, that he didn’t see a small tangle of malignant magic ahead of him and ran headlong into it. The curse hit him with a full body-bind and an incendio launched itself at him from the darkness ahead of them. Harry didn’t stop to think before stepping swiftly in front of Bill, throwing up a shield charm with one hand, and quickly unravelling the curse with the other. Three more incendios hit his shield charm and threatened to break it before he managed to unravel the charm. Bill fell forward when the curse released him and seized Harry by the shoulders, looking over him to make sure he was safe.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Harry mistook Bill’s concern for anger.

“No, no, Harry,” Bill said, half laughing and half panting from the adrenaline,“I’m not angry. You saved my life. I should be thanking you.”

“I shouldn’t have followed you, Bill. I almost got you killed.” Bill laughed again and repeated his reassurances, but a confused look passed over his face.

“How did you do that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Er I’ve been practicing wandless magic at school and, you know. Accident, I guess.” Bill shook his head.

“No, I felt you disarm that curse, Harry. Come on, I won’t tell anybody. How’d you do that?” Harry huffed and decided it wasn’t worth it to lie. 

“I saw you disarm the others, so I kind of copied you. Took me too long, though. One more incendio and we would have been toast. Literally.” Bill laughed and ruffled Harry’s hair. 

“Kid, you have a gift. You ever think about going into curse-breaking? Just don’t tell my mum or pretty boy’s mum what happened. You’d never see graduation.” Nothing unusual happened after that and the children were treated to their first mummy, though the fun had to end when the twins tried to put Ginny in the sarcophagus. As they prepared to leave Egypt earlier than the rest of the Weasleys, however, Bill handed Harry a well loved, leather bound book on curse breaking and common curses. He stashed it amongst the many birthday presents the rest of the family gave him and winked, pressing a finger to his lips, which Harry mimicked. Harry read through the book cover to cover and worked through it with Snape without the Sight so that he could sense malignant energy signatures without “cheating,” as Tom would say. The work mostly involved projecting a web of magic around his body constantly until it became a passive activity. 

“I’m sure you got into this because of that rugged and exotic Bill Weasley, but I’m glad you’re more interested in the magic than the glamor of the work,” Snape said as Harry worked through his latest challenge curse. Harry smirked.

“It looked useful,” he said, shrugging.

“And the use-value is more important than anything, right?”

“Of course,” Harry said, nose still buried in his work. Between his exercise routine, his friends, his lessons with Legion, and his revision with Snape, Harry had no time or energy to dream and it suited him just fine. By the time summer ended, his body felt stable for the first time in his life and his skin was golden, warmed by the sun. Though he was still shorter, he was steadily growing taller and catching up with Draco, who was also hitting that awkward stage of a boy’s life where his lanky limbs were growing faster than his brain could keep up with. On Draco, however, puberty could do little to diminish his graceful airs.

 

“I can’t believe we have to alter both of your robes  _ again, _ ” Narcissa said, sighing, as she watched Madame Malkin and an assistant fuss over the hems of Harry and Draco’s new school robes. “I should have known better than to buy them so early and to think there’s still nearly a month left before start of term. You two can’t grow anymore, please. You’ll wear poor Madame Malkin’s fingers to the bone.”

“Nonsense, darling,” Madame Malkin said through a mouthful of pins, “your business keeps me on my toes. They’re growing boys and you never know when a growth spurt will hit.” She made a few more adjustments and waved her wand to zig zag stitch the hems to rapid and flawless completion. As they left the store, Harry noticed more eyes on him than usual and Narcissa shepherded them quickly to the nearest fireplace to floo home, pausing only to grab a copy of the Prophet before Harry could see what was on the front page.

“What was that all about?” Draco asked his mother after he stepped through the fireplace. Narcissa only gave him a wary look and handed him the paper. Draco’s eyes widened minutely as he read before he passed it to Harry, suddenly as quiet as Narcissa.

“Who’s Sirius Black?” Harry asked, eyes still trained on the screaming mugshot on the front page. Narcissa gently took back the paper and sat him down on a nearby sofa and told him the story, not in the least surprised that nobody had bothered to tell him.

“He was my godfather and he betrayed them?” Harry’s voice shook, hitting that deep, dangerous octave that he’d only recently been able to achieve.

“There’s one more thing,” Narcissa said, still patting Harry’s limp hand. “He’s my cousin. We got along well enough when we were young because we were family, but once he left home and refused the dark lord’s ideals, I had to cut off all ties with him to protect this family.”

“So he wasn’t a Death Eater?” Harry was so confused and he wished he could rip the man in the paper out of his little picture so that he could interrogate him himself. 

“Not as far as anyone knew, Harry. That’s why it’s so unusual that he would betray them. Either way, he’s dangerous and you have to be careful, Harry.” Narcissa took one of his hands in both of hers, but knew better than to touch him any more than that. Draco sat on the back of the couch looking at his hands. Later that evening, Lucius came storming out of the fireplace with auror Shacklebolt and Solicitor Lawson at his heels.

“Lucius, I’ve tried negotiating with the Minister and the head of the Auror Office, but I’m afraid my hands are tied,” he said, voice steady despite Lucius’s stormy demeanor. 

“What Harry deserves is a full protective detail, not a dementor patrol, Shacklebolt,” Samantha said, voicing Lucius’s discontent with more civility than he was capable of displaying at the moment. 

“We can’t spare the resources, Lawson. Our numbers just aren’t what they used to be and we need the aurors to lead the search for Black as well as maintain our current caseload. I’m sorry, but a dementor patrol is the best I can do.”

“Dementors are dangerous and unreliable. I’m sure you understand why we’re fighting you on this,” Lucius said, taking a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“What’s a dementor?” The three adults turned, surprised at the sight of Harry standing there in front of them. 

“Hello, Mr. Potter,” Shacklebolt said, flashing a big smile at him before stepping closer to give Harry a manly, but companionable slap on the back. “You look well. Much better than the last time I saw you, taller too. They must feed you very well here.” Harry smiled up at the large man before him, craning his neck to see his face.

“Thanks partly to you, Mr. Shacklebolt.” 

“Just Shacklebolt will be fine, Mr. Potter. Let me tell you. A dementor is like a very large and scary guard dog. They can make you feel as if everything good has gone out of the world and then suck your soul out of you. The ministry’s got these beasties on a leash and we use them to guard Azkaban.”

“Except that dementors don’t really take orders from anyone, no matter how much the ministry might wish they did,” Lawson said, both hands on her hips. The withering look she shot Shacklebolt made her seem like the six foot two warrior in the room. 

“While I don’t confirm or deny that,” Shacklebolt said, clearing his throat, “I don’t want Harry to be alarmed. The dementors are good guards even if they are prone to mutiny. They want Black’s soul as reparation for his escape and that at least will ensure that they get him.”

“Even if they take down other people in the process? Their blood will be on the minister’s hands, Shacklebolt,” Lucius warned. 

“The point is,” Shacklebolt continued, “having at least the dementors there is better than having nothing. An Auror will be posted at Hogwarts alongside the dementors as an extra security measure, but that is all I can spare.”

“A security measure against who-” Lawson started before Harry cut all of them off.

“I’m not afraid,” he said, “of either of them.” The adults stopped talking and looked down at their shoes, remembering that he was in the room.

“I’m not afraid,” he said again. “If I’ve stayed alive this long, I don’t think any of that would make a difference. My life’s not any more at risk than it usually is,” he said.

“While I don’t blame you for thinking that way, Harry,” Shacklebolt began after a beat of silence, “Black is a very experienced wizard and dementors are very tough creatures to beat.”

“Then I’ll learn how to beat them,” Harry said, crossing his arms almost obstinately. “That’s the only way I’ve been getting on recently anyway. I can protect myself if things go wrong.” Given the events of the last two years, nobody could argue with that.

“I wish it weren't so, lad,” Shacklebolt said, rubbing his huge hands together. “It’s a sad day when a boy your age has to fend for himself. While I will send along some reading material for you, I really hope you can trust us to protect you.”

“As do I,” Lucius added. “Harry, don't try to confront any of these things by yourself. Please, if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe at any point at school, you come home and you'll be safe here.”Harry nodded gravely, accepting the embrace that Lawson felt she needed to give him as the other two spoke. The very next morning, Harry was awake early enough to see a small fleet of dementors fly into the manor’s airspace, rippling the air as they passed through the mansion’s wards. They flew in a loose formation lead by the biggest dementor of the group and Harry felt them usher in a chilly gloom that passed as the group flew out of sight to start their wide patrol of the grounds. Watching them shook Harry’s nerves because he could see souls that looked like mere husks of human beings with hollowed out eyes in their translucent, bony heads. Each pulled and gnawed at their bindings, which tethered them to the dementors. The biggest of them all had so many tied together in an angry tidal wave of spirits, Harry couldn't count their heads. He shivered involuntarily and watched them warily until they floated out of sight.

“How do you kill a dementor?” Harry asked one day during his lessons with Draco and Snape. Both of his companions froze and fixed Harry with frightened gazes.

“You don’t kill a dementor, you dill,” Draco said, thwacking Harry good naturedly on the arm. He chuckled a bit, clearly thinking Harry was joking, only to find that Harry was dead serious.

“Harry,” Snape began, “for just this instance, I agree with Draco. You can’t kill a dementor.”

“Well what are you supposed to do about them?” Harry had the ministry’s pamphlets on dementors spread across his lap. “These ministry pamphlets basically say that we don’t know anything about dementors other than using  _ expecto patronum. _ What’s that, anyway?” 

“It’s a difficult spell that acts like a shield against the effects of a dementor and keeps them from getting close to you.” 

“Show me.” The rest of the afternoon was devoted to learning the spell and neither Harry or Draco could manage it by the week’s end.

“I just can't do it,” Harry said for perhaps the first time since he started using magic.

“That’s something I never thought I'd hear you say,” Draco said, looking menacingly at his own wand. Snape, however, looked relieved, rolling his eyes up and mumbling to himself something that sounded suspiciously like “finally”.

_ The spell you seek to learn is essentially giving happiness a physical form,  _ the floaters offered.  _ This is unlike the manipulation of souls and other things that have no form. The happiness must exist first within yourself before it can exist in the world.  _

“So I'm not happy enough?” Harry asked aloud, making both Snape and Draco flinch. He looked up at Snape.

“Is it because all of my memories aren't happy enough? Will I ever be able to do it if none of my memories are really happy?”

“No way, mate,” Draco said, “I can't do it either. I'm sure you just haven't found the right one.” Snape didn't say anything, only looked at Harry with a strange expression in his eyes. Later on, when Draco had gone out with his mother, Snape found Harry walking by himself on the manor grounds.

“Harry, I want you to know that producing a patronus is a very difficult thing,” he started, “and even I couldn't do it until my fifth year at Hogwarts. The memory I found was of meeting your mother for the first time and I never realized how happy it made me until I was much older. These things take time.”

“I know,” Harry huffed, “it’s just that not being able to do it makes me feel like everything I thought felt like the happiest moment of my life really isn't. I've tried everything. Getting my Hogwarts letter, meeting the Malfoys, getting rescued from the Dursleys. Nothing seems to work.”

“Well, true joy isn't something a boy your age is supposed to understand.” Snape cleared his throat. “If you could cast the spell on your first try, I would have retired and given you my job.”

Harry snorted and muttered a wry, “gee, thanks.”

 

The last few weeks of holiday passed and neither of them made very much progress at all with the patronus. Harry could produce a light mist of white, but it was nothing like Snape’s fully corporeal doe. Harry was so obsessed with learning the spell, he practiced it wandlessly all the way until he made it onto the train and didn't notice the sleeping man in the only empty compartment left on the train. Hermione pulled him away just in time to keep him from sitting on the man.

“Who’s he?” Draco mouthed to Harry, who shrugged in response. Hermione whacked Draco on the chest and pointed to the man’s suitcase. 

“The new Defense professor,” Pansy hissed. By some miracle and a sneaky expansion charm, they managed to fit Blaise, Neville, Ron, Hermione, Pansy, Harry, Crabbe, Goyle, Ginny, and the sleeping man into the one compartment. It was a little bit of a squeeze, but it was worth it. Harry was still mulling over the damnable spell when the train screeched to a stop and a growing sense of impending doom passed over the train. Before anyone could figure out what was going on, a dementor appeared at the door, wrapping its thin, stick-like fingers around the compartment’s sliding door and pushing it aside with deliberate slowness. Harry pounced, leveling his wand at the thing and trying and failing to cast a patronus. When his third thin, translucent shield dissipated, Harry gave up and tried other spells, any he could think of. He sent blazing infernos at it, tried ripping it to shreds in all directions and the dementor brushed each attack off, suffering only tears to its robes and scorch marks that did no damage to it at all. Harry began to lose focus and his limbs shivered too violently for him to stand up straight. He gripped his head, involuntarily remembering something that made his stomach roil. In his mind’s eye, he saw flashes of green and a splay of red hair accompanied by a deafening scream in his ears he could only remember from his worst nightmares. The world went black, mercifully muting the scream.

“That’s a good lad,” and unfamiliar voice said as something waxy and sweet was pressed against his lips. “Eat. It will help you recover.” Harry blearily sat up and face to which the voice belonged to came into focus. He was on one of the seats with his legs dangling off the side at an angle that suggested someone had hauled him off the floor and put him there. He opened his mouth and grabbed whatever was being offered to him between his teeth.  His friends were all on their feet, staring worriedly at him, each nursing their own piece of Honeyduke’s chocolate.

“It’s just chocolate,” the man called Remus Lupin said, chuckling. Harry rubbed a hand over his face and sat up, feeling better, but still slightly like he was going to be sick.

“I’m Remus Lupin. Pleasure to meet you. That was an admirable patronus for someone your age,” Lupin continued, “though I can guess you haven’t quite found the right memory.”

“I’m Harry,” Harry said, taking the hand Lupin offered by way of greeting. 

“A pleasure,” Lupin clipped, gripping Harry’s hand in his own pale, dry one. The man looked haggard with a permanently grim expression on his face, though he’d slept the whole train ride. He swept out of the compartment soon after, suitcase and all, to tell off the conductor for letting dementors on the train.

“Nervous looking,” Ron said, popping the last bit of chocolate in his mouth, “though any man who keeps a five pound bar of chocolate in his robe is good in my book.”

“Think with your brain and not with your stomach, Ronald,” Hermione snapped.

“Yeah let’s just cross our fingers and hope he’s not possessed by you-know-who like the last two,” Blaise said, crossing his arms broodily. “Can’t buy me with sweets.” 

“Well, you’re not a Weasley,” Draco said, trying to laugh. 

“Hey, don’t lump me into this,” Ginny snapped. “It’s only Ron whose gullet is a black hole, not all of us.” The compartment erupted into soft giggles, which Harry joined in on, if only to avoid the worried gazes all of his friends were turning on him whenever each thought another wasn’t looking. He also ignored his shaking hands that wouldn’t warm no matter how hard he rubbed them.

 


	17. The Broken Boy Ch. 17

17.

 

The dementor on the train caused a whirlwind of conversation at the opening feast. Harry felt many eyes on him even before the castle doors opened to admit them and jumped when McGonagall’s hand made contact with his shoulder. She motioned for him to follow and Harry complied, waving his friends off.

“Professor Lupin owled me about the dementor,” she said, once they were safely locked away in her office. “How are you feeling? I know you might not want to hear my concern or anybody else’s right now, but I understand how jarring your first dementor can be.” Harry squirmed under her sympathetic gaze and didn't know what to say. 

“The dementors I encountered,” she continued, haltingly, “fed on my grief over the death of my husband.” She looked down at her hands, wrinkly eyelids unfolding like veiny paper over her eyes. “It took me quite some time to be able to stand being in the same room as a dementor without being overwhelmed.”

“I'm...so sorry, professor,” Harry began before McGonagall cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“My trouble with the dementors resolved itself a long time ago, Mr. Potter. My only worry now is that you should have to relive such painful memories at a time like this. Do you remember what it was that it made you remember? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”

Harry cleared his dry throat and shook himself. “I, uh, I'm not sure what it was that I saw,” he said, quite truthfully. “I think I'm supposed to remember it, but I can't.” McGonagall placed a finger to her lips thoughtfully.

“I have to tell you that I've never heard of anything like this happening before. Perhaps it is something you experienced that your mind decided to forcefully forget. I don't suppose you'd like to tell me what you saw?”

Harry shivered and rubbed his arms. “It’s too close. I'm sorry.”

“I understand, Mr. Potter. There's no need at all to apologize. I'll be here if you need to talk to someone. Nothing that happens in this room will reach anyone else’s ears, not even the headmaster’s.”

Harry’s head snapped up when she mentioned Dumbledore and she answered his shocked gaze with a knowing wink. 

“Here, eat,” she said, handing him a sizable bar of chocolate. “It’ll help.”

“So I've heard,” he said, smiling. McGonagall waved him out of her office and he left hastily just in time to see the first years entering the castle on his way to the great hall. Thankfully, nobody noticed him coming in and he found a seat by Ron. McGonagall appeared just behind him, scroll in hand and a trail of children behind her just as she did when Harry was a first year himself and he had the distinct feeling that he was starting to like her, if only a little. He quieted his friends’ questions by shoving a hunk of chocolate into each of their mouths, laughing quite freely at Hermione’s incensed chewing. Dumbledore’s speech about the dementors peeved him more than he would admit and he couldn't believe the ministry was stationing dementors this close to so many children. Maybe he could believe it. It was the ministry, after all. The most Dumbledore could offer was to advise everyone to keep their lights on, which gave Harry a migraine. It was worse than telling him to love Voldemort to death. Ron was as mad as he was, muttering a surprisingly acidic, “bloody candle won't keep a dementor away you batty old fart.” Harry had never felt their friendship so keenly. Immediately after the feast, Harry and Hermione were pulled aside by Percy, who gestured for them to follow him to McGonagall’s office.

“What do you think she wants with us?” Hermione examined her pristine nails in an attempt at hiding her nerves. Harry shrugged, playing along and doing his best to look casual. Percy left them in McGonagall’s study and the professor herself appeared shortly after.

“Don't worry Miss Granger,” she said, handing each of them a scroll and a pouch, “I didn't call you here to scold you. These are your schedules for the year. I must say that I am quite proud of both of you for taking on such an extensive course load.”

Hermione shot Harry a rather surprised look and he shrugged sheepishly back. He’d owled McGonagall about taking overlapping classes and expected to take some sort of revisionary class outside of regular hours. He hadn't told anyone, not even Draco.

“Both of your marks were sufficient for the ministry to grant you provisionary time turners,” McGonagall continued, fishing out the device from Harry’s little leather pouch. “This will allow you to travel back in time a maximum of five hours to attend all of your classes and complete your coursework.” Once she finished explaining the details of its use and the restrictions of time travel, she walked them back to the dormitories and bade them goodnight.

“I didn't know you were going to take the same schedule as me,” Hermione said as soon as the portrait swung closed. Most of the other students were in their rooms unpacking, leaving the common room blessedly empty. 

“I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I thought I was just going to have a bit of extra class time after hours, not this,” he whispered, gesturing to the pouch that lay disillusioned against his chest. Inexplicably, Hermione closed the distance between them to hug him as if he’d come to her rescue. He didn't resist and tucked her head neatly under his chin, noticing their height difference for the first time since reuniting on the train. Hermione pulled away after a few seconds, looking close to tears.

“Sorry, I'm just so glad I'm not the only one doing this. There’s going to be so much work and the thought of not being able to tell anyone about it would have driven me bonkers.”

“Don't worry about it, Hermione. I was scared too. We wouldn’t be human if we weren’t afraid.” They exchanged parting words and headed up to unpack their things. The first day of classes was satisfyingly chaotic, with his first time turner uses taking up most of Harry’s concentration. He found that the best way to manage things was to take one class, go to an empty lavatory, use the time turner, and go to a different class on the other side of the castle. If he saw Hermione during the day, he didn't dare try to talk to her about which time turner revolution he was on. With the three extra classes they were taking, he spent two hours of the day avoiding her. He found the extra work stimulating and sufficiently challenging, but couldn't help thinking some of the new electives were useless. Muggle studies, obviously, did him no good because the lectures were full of things he already knew. Still, it was a nice break in his day and he could try to get some work done while the professor droned on about the primary usage of dish soap. Divination, however, truly left him feeling like he was wasting his time.

“I don't know what to tell you, mate,” Ron said, squinting into the teacup before him. “It just looks like a pile of soggy tea leaves.” Harry shrugged himself, ready to jot down something creative enough to turn in when Professor Trelawney wafted by, smelling of herbs he didn't want to know the uses for. She squawked at the sight of his tea cup and predicted his death while he could plainly see that nothing was going on with her magical core to suggest any prophetic abilities. He was unreasonably peeved by her comments about his death and was weighing shattering her glasses wandlessly against doing it with his fists.  _ Calm, child,  _ Legion thundered suddenly. Harry flinched in his seat at their sudden outburst.  _ She does possess some prophetic ability, though it is weak. Her Sight is different from yours and only appears fleetingly whenever fate chooses. Look for yourself and you will see that this is true.  _

Harry did look closer and found a single thread of an unusual form of magic attached to her that seemed to travel nowhere at all, but stuck of her out like a hair out of a mole. It was hardly a momentous cosmic gift, but it was a gift. Harry shook his head, but decided he could try to glean whatever he could from this useless class. He did have the prophecy to worry about after all. Nothing was stopping him from having his fun, however.

“Oh, that prediction isn't very new at all, professor,” he said, sweetly as she pointed a claw-like finger at him. “I've come close to dying every year I've been here. What will land Harry Potter in the infirmary this year? It’s like the lottery and Sirius Black just increased raised the stakes. Would you like to start the betting pool?” It was far from funny, but Trelawney’s stricken expression amused him to no end.

“You're both horrible,” Hermione said, eyeing Harry resentfully over her lunch.

“What did I do?” Harry asked between bites of potato salad.

“You joked about your life like it’s no big deal, Harry. It’s almost worse than her casually predicting the death of a student.”

“Come on, Hermione, he was just messing with her,” Ron said as soon as his mouth was empty enough for him to speak. He was still miffed about Hermione’s cat making a move on Scabbers.

“Yeah, Hermione. It’s okay if I do it because I'm talking about myself. I was just trying to get her to drop that hippie dippy mystic act. You know the one,” he said, imitating Trelawney’s posture and crossed eyes. Hermione laughed in spite of herself. 

Hagrid’s first lesson as a professor, as one might expect, was awkward and most everyone was peeved by the murderous textbook he assigned. 

“Oh bloody hell,” Malfoy spat. “This book tore a hole in my new shirt.” Harry snickered and looked over to find that the book had indeed hooked one of its teeth into Draco’s new shirt and was working on detaching a sleeve. 

“Oh you poor thing,” Harry said, still laughing at Malfoy’s stricken expression. He pointed a finger at the hole and mended it wandlessly, barely able to say the words through his giggles.

“You're supposed to stroke it.” Draco glared at him mutinously, stroking the stupid book when he thought Harry wasn't looking. Flying on Buckbeak was exhilerating and Harry couldn't deny that he liked it almost as much as riding a broom. Draco decided to give it a go, only to find that he was dreadfully afraid of having to balance on what was essentially one of those mechanical bull rides with wings. His whoops could be heard from across the lake, but upon landing, he couldn't hold on tightly enough to Buckbeak’s feathers and fell off as the hippogriff made its final bucking flaps to land. Harry acted quickly and whipped out his wand to slow Draco’s descent and let him land gently on his feet. Draco was himself breathless and giddy despite his fall and Harry could tell that he felt the same about Buckbeak being a wonderful experience. He loved flying as much as Harry did, after all. In the end, however, some of the other students were reluctant to fly and Hagrid was too nervous to let any more of them try. 

“Don't tear yourself up over it, Draco,” Pansy said, straightening Draco’s hair. “I'm sure no one will be stupid enough to report it.” Unfortunately, Dumbledore did get wind of the incident and made an announcement at breakfast the next morning that the board would be taking action against Buckbeak and reevaluating the safety standards of Hagrid’s class, much to the frustration of all the students. Draco slammed his fork on the table and stormed out from dinner early, mumbling, “Father will be hearing about this.”

The first few days of classes allowed Harry to get into a routine that usually included exercise in the morning that Malfoy usually joined in on and training with Legion in the Room of Requirement in the same hour thanks to his time turner. Legion continued to drill him on matters of the soul and was explaining the theory behind reanimation of corpses when Harry was suddenly hit with an uncomfortable feeling in his gut when he looked into the face of the shade of Lily Potter. Legion stopped speaking and tilted its head owlishly, eyes still closed. Its movement reminded him of where he was and he shook the feeling off, pushing Legion to continue the lesson.

Lupin’s defence class had Harry keenly interested and he was surprised to find that the defense classroom had been cleared of its desks. The professor stood smiling mischievously in the middle on the room in front of a rather large wardrobe and pointed a finger up at the ceiling. The class looked up to find that all the furniture was stuck magically to the ceiling.

“I came in this morning to find that some clever trickster had done that to all the desks in my room. No matter, we’ll just have to do something a bit more fun instead. The boggart was interesting to say the least. Harry squirmed, hanging back behind most of the class. Even he didn't know what his worst fear was. His anxiety wore him down until Neville’s boggart turned into Snape in his gran’s clothes. He thought that they fit, given the amount of babysitting he did for Narcissa. Harry’s smile slipped off of his face, however, when he stepped up to meet it. The room darkened and the air became cold despite the day’s warmth. 

What looked like a dementor wafted out of the wardrobe in front of him and a woman’s scream echoed through the room. Harry was surprised to find that his peers could hear the terrible sound too and many of them put their hands to their ears. The screaming was faint at first, like listening to someone speak underwater. As the dementor crept closer, the screaming became more enunciated until it was apparent to everyone in the room that the voice was screaming Harry’s name. Harry’s vision went red with anger and panic, completely unwilling to confront his memories, and it made his blood roil that the dementor had the gall to invade his mind. Forgetting entirely where he was, he reached out his wand numbly and fired whatever curse he could think of at it. Since the creature was indeed only a boggart, the thing burnt itself into a pile of white ash, smokeless and seemingly from within. Its death was quick, but violent and painful, judging by the scream that it produced that sounded like one of those fake dinosaurs on muggle television. Harry couldn’t bear to turn around to see the expression on his classmates’ faces.

“Right, well. Since our specimen has quite literally gone up in smoke, I’d say we can end class early today,” Lupin said, ushering the students out and keeping Harry back by placing a hand on his shoulder. Hermione looked as if she were about to refuse until Ron pulled her away.

“I’m sorry, professor-”

“No, Harry, you've nothing to be sorry about,” Lupin said pulling down two chairs from the ceiling. He motioned for Harry to sit and took the other for himself. Wordlessly, he took Harry’s hand.

“What was that, if you don’t mind me asking?” Lupin didn’t look up from Harry’s hand.

“I-I don’t know, sir. I heard it that day on the train when you saved me from the other dementor.” 

“Do you need to talk about it? I know you don’t know me very well, but I am your teacher.” When it was apparent that Harry’s lips were buttoned closed,  Lupin sighed and continued.

“ _ Aestus  _ was an interesting choice in spells,” he said, examining the skin of Harry’s wand hand, “but I wouldn't advise using it until you're at least fifteen. You've only gone and burned yourself.” Harry looked down. He hadn't even noticed the blisters forming in his palm.

“Sorry,” he said again. Lupin shook his head as he magically healed the burns.

“Don't apologize, Harry. Really. I'm the one who should have known better, knowing what you've been through.” He looked up from his work. “You know, you have your mother’s eyes.” 

Harry blinked. He knew, of course, but he had to tread lightly. “I-I do?” Lupin nodded.

“Your father always said they were his favorite thing about her.”

“You knew my parents?” 

“I did. They were my best friends. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't say anything. I tried so very hard to find you after the war, but Dumbledore had to keep your location a secret and, well, I'm not the best caretaker in the world.”

Harry was at a loss for words. He couldn’t decide whether he was angry at Dumbledore for keeping Lupin from contacting him or at Lupin for not trying harder to find him. The question that flew from his lips was born out of confusion.

“What were they like?”

“They were brilliant, Harry. Your dad was the best quidditch player in school and he was a very capable wizard. He was a mean prankster, too, until your mother showed up. Now she was a smart lady. She could cast any spell. You name it, she knew it. They were a lot like you, really. Where on earth did you learn a spell like  _ Aestus? _ ” Harry told Lupin about his revision with Snape and Lupin’s jaw dropped when Harry silently and wandlessly brought all of his furniture down from the ceiling in one go.

“Oh my word,” he said, hand on his chest. “If this isn't James pulling a fast one on me from beyond the grave, I'll eat my shirt.”   
  


Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, looking as if he had a migraine that was as persistent as the great red spot on Jupiter. Lupin grinned tiredly at him and kept a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry was avoiding Snape’s eye. The three of them were gathered in the potions classroom and the room smelt of something foul that was bubbling away in a cauldron that Snape had magically set to stir by itself. 

“Come on, Severus,” Lupin said, making a poor attempt at camaraderie, “I know you’re still miffed that Dumbledore didn’t give you the job, but I’d like to help Harry. Think of his education.”

“Professor Flitwick and I are perfectly capable of teaching Mr. Potter on our own.” Harry winced. Snape hadn’t called him “Mr. Potter” since his first year and the change stung.

“I spoke to Flitwick and he agrees that a third teacher to replace Quirrell would help spread out the workload more evenly. You’re busy enough as it is.”

“And whose fault is that?” The two fell silent and Harry looked between them curiously. Snape saw him watching and harrumphed.

“Fine, for Harry’s sake, I will work with you to further his education. You cannot, however, tell anybody about this, especially the headmaster.”

“Brilliant! I’ll see you tomorrow, then, eh, Harry?” Lupin patted Harry’s shoulder and left the potions room.

“Sorry, professor,” he said, “he followed me in.”

“Like a true dog,” Snape spat. “I don’t trust that man.”

“Why not? He was friends with my dad.”

“Exactly.”

“I like him.” Harry looked down at his hands, afraid of what Snape might say. Snape only sighed.

“As I said, I will try to cooperate. We’re not schoolboys anymore.” Harry beamed, making the corner of Snape’s mouth twitch upwards once.

“You look just like your mother when you smile. It’s your eyes.”

“Lupin said the same thing.” Snape snorted softly and tossed Harry a new curse-breaking book.

 

Harry began his lessons with professor Lupin most unusually by meeting him outside of the forbidden forest. 

“I got old Hagrid to let me use the space he uses for Care,” Lupin said, dragging a few stray branches away from the center of the clearing they stood in. He popped the log in a heap that, upon further inspection, turned out to be a part of a very elaborate obstacle course. Harry looked down at his school robes and sighed.

“Professor, what is all this?” Lupin levitated yet another, larger log onto the heap and grinned.

“This is something we used to do, your father and I,” he said, working on another barrier. “We were big fans of muggle military training courses and we sort of made things up and romped around for the fun of it. I figured, since you are so very good at wandless magic, what good is it if you’re standing still? The best advantage you have is that your hands and body are free to move about without the restrictions of a wand.”

“You could have told me,” Harry chuckled, gesturing to his terribly inappropriate attire. 

“Why Harry,” he said, letting a rather heavy bolder crash to the ground, “somebody chasing you won’t wait for you to change your clothes. Today shouldn’t be any different. Besides, you know how to transfigure them yourself.” Harry realized he’d been had and dutifully transfigured his slacks and shirt into suitable athletic clothing. Lupin’s obstacle course was tough and he spent the first lesson mostly learning to climb it. At the top of each barrier and under each low rail, he was expected to cast a basic curse at really anything.

“Come on, Harry,” Lupin laughed next to him as he worked, if you can’t cast a tickling curse at nothing at all, how will you fare against a target? You can do it! I know you can!” 

This strange sort of pep talk that Harry was completely unused to got him through the course and in two hours, he was hitting static targets that changed position with every repetition of the course. He was, of course, completely knackered afterwards, but happy. He hadn’t thought of his father in a while and it was only now, sweating through the crazy obstacles that his father almost certainly went through, that he felt closer to knowing who he really was. As he dragged his feet back up to Gryffindor tower, The Fat Lady admitted him, asking “What on earth happened to you? You look like you fell in the lake and then had a row with the giant squid.” 

Harry waved her comments away and dove for the showers and then for his bed, fully intending to use his time turner to take a much needed nap. He was awakened by a tapping on the window by his bed where an owl stood impatiently jerking its head this way and that. It looked to be a rented messenger owl. Harry opened the window, offered the owl an owl treat and a sickle for payment. Bloody thing almost took Harry’s finger off and shoved the letter into Harry’s palm with its talons before flying off. The letter was written on a plain piece of parchment that was folded in half. In the center, written with soot mixed with water, were the words “I found him” in a shaky, almost illegible script. Harry didn’t have to wonder to know that the letter was from Lockhart and his heart pounded out the painful rhythm of relief. He burned the letter in his hands and pulled out his time turner to go back in time for his next class.

“Come on, lads,” Oliver howled, his hoarse voice growing more hoarse by the second, “are you boys or are you men?” 

“Men!” The team yelled.

“Oy! We take offense to that!” Alicia Spinnet yelled, lobbing the quaffle derisively at Oliver’s head. Katie bell aided its journey with a swat of her broom. Angelina scooped it from the air just before Oliver could catch it and threw it, point blank at his head, making him duck and allowing the quaffle to zip through the goal post behind him..

“What are we?!” Oliver exclaimed, hand on his heart and a genuinely frightened look on his face.

“Women!” The rest of the team answered. The three chasers flew in a triumphant circle exchanging high fives and slaps on the back like lionesses sharing a bit of prey. Harry watched the exchange from his end of the practice field, where he was subjected to a different course of gruelling training, and chuckled before having to corkscrew out of the path of an incoming bludger. Oliver had rigged a bludger or four to fly at Harry randomly, never enough to injure, but enough to force him to dodge.

“We don’t want a repeat of last year!” Oliver bellowed just before releasing all of the bludgers the school owned.

“That wasn’t even my fault!” Harry was too busy trying to fly away to make sure he’d heard. When he next passed over Oliver, his captain was yelling again.

“I don’t care! We will be victorious, rigged bludgers or no!” Oliver had clearly gone nutters. By the time practice was over, Harry was dizzy and sore from performing so many spins and flips. The physical punishment continued for Harry when Flitwick decided to teach Harry and Draco advanced dueling.

“Mr. Malfoy will be joining us from now on because dueling in practical situations usually involves more than just one person. Issues like friendly fire and poor cover fire can ruin your day.” As he twittered, professor Flitwick worked on transfiguring some of the furniture in his classroom so that they might have enough room to move around instead of the restrictions of a standard dueling strip. 

“Learning to duel with other people will allow you to hold your own even if you partner,” he continued, gesturing vaguely to Draco, “is an inexperienced dueler, not that you’re inexperienced, Mr. Malfoy. You are, however, a perfect example of a reasonably good dueler without the uncommon advantages Mr. Potter possesses. Mr. Potter, do try to remember that your particular talents are so rare, it’s like finding a phoenix sitting on a griffin’s head in a pair of bloomers owned by Rowena Ravenclaw.” Harry, who was in the middle of moving a table, almost dropped the heavy, floating table, cringing at Flitwick’s gushing. He didn’t have to turn around to know that Draco was stifling his laughter behind him. They spent a solid hour shooting curses at professor Flitwick, who leapt and dodged with surprising alacrity until both boys ended up shooting expelliarmus at each other, sending each other’s wands flying into their faces. Draco’s wand hit Harry squarely on the forehead, narrowly missing his scar, which he was grateful for since it was still tender. 

“Both of you need to work on your coordination. If you were paying attention to each other, you would have noticed that you were casting at each other.” Flitwick demonstrated some of the dodging techniques he used when faced with more than one caster and he snapped for them to repeat the exercise. The afternoon ended with only slight improvement and more sore muscles than Harry even knew he had. This exhausting schedule had Harry eating more heartily than he ever had before and as his body grew taller and leaner in just a few weeks, his hunger pang frame finally filling out somewhat, much to his and the bathroom mirror’s relief.

“Much better, darling. I was afraid you’d not be long for the grave,” the mirror sighed to him one morning. Harry blushed and finished tying back his hair. It was the only thing he could do to keep it out of his face since the Malfoys forbade him from cutting it.

“It’s simply too pretty to cut, dear,” Narcissa said as she absently cast a sticking charm on his bangs.

“Yes, it’s far too unruly when it’s short, anyway,” Draco clipped, his stance mimicking his mother. At that, the matter was settled and Harry stood in front of the talking mirror in the bathroom in Gryffindor Tower more than a month later with six more inches of hair than when that particular conversation happened. He wasn’t about to disobey orders and have Draco report his hair mutiny to Narcissa. Harry was up early again because of another nightmare, the same one that started bothering him only after the dementor on the train. Nightmares weren’t anything new to him, but there had never been one quite like this one that came again and again every night like a chronic ear infection. It always began with happy visions of two smiling faces that were interrupted with a flash of green and that horrible scream. He couldn’t place the images anywhere in his memories, but that scream ignited within him fear and sorrow that always woke him in the dead of night with his heart beating a reel straight out of his chest. While the general fatigue from his punishing physical regimen kept the dreams at bay for a little while, the days leading up to Halloween seemed to worsen his insomnia.

When Halloween finally arrived, Harry was looking forward to his first visit to Hogsmeade, but was dismayed to find professor McGonagall standing in his way at the school gate.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, but Sirius Black’s escape poses a great security risk for you. We cannot let you outside of the castle’s wards.” Harry stared numbly at the proffered permission slip and he shook with barely restrained rage. 

“My safety should be up to me and my family to decide,” he bit out once he’d calmed enough to sound civil. “I discussed this with my guardians and they signed this permission slip knowing the risks. Who decided this?”

“The headmaster did, Mr. Potter. I’m sorry. While I agree with you and trust that you would be safe, given the dementor patrols of the area and the presence of so many members of the faculty, it is quite out of my hands.”

In a move that sounded more like Draco, Harry left the permission slip in her hands anyway and muttered, “wait until Mr. Malfoy hears about this.” After furiously scribbling a letter to Mr. Malfoy and deciding he needed to calm down before owling it to him, he tried scuttling to the kitchens for some tea. Upon reaching the corridor where the Hufflepuff common room was, he raised a hand to summon Dobby, who’d insisted on following them to Hogwarts  _ again _ , convinced that Harry needed protection with Sirius Black on the loose _.  _ Instead of having him on mop guard in Gryffindor Tower, Harry and Draco had decided to convince Dobby that the most danger Harry would face at school would be through the food. The eccentric elf spent the last two months of school working in the kitchens, personally working on all of the food sent to the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. Shouldering open the door to the kitchen corridor, however, he was surprised to find Professor Lupin negotiating biscuits from another elf. Noticing his presence, Lupin unfolded himself and smiled in greeting.

“Harry! I see we both had the same idea about afternoon tea,” he said, straightening his ill fitting jacket. “I thought you went to Hogsmeade.” Harry scowled and explained what happened. Lupin grimaced sympathetically, but the mention of Sirius brought something dark into his expression that Harry caught for only a split second before it was gone again. Seeing that both of them were in a surly mood, Lupin invited Harry up to his office for tea. 

“I have some tea up in my office, even if these elves won’t spare me any.” Harry grinned for the first time that day and snapped his fingers to summon Dobby. The excitable elf launched himself at Harry to embrace his legs before snapping his fingers, making a tray containing tea and biscuits appear in Harry’s hands. Harry patted Dobby’s head and gave him a biscuit from the tray before dismissing him.

“You need to teach me that trick,” Lupin said, levitating the tray and leading the way to his office.

“Trust me,” Harry said, grimacing, “it’s not much of a party trick.” They took their tea in Lupin’s rather sparse, slightly messy office. Harry noticed that Lupin ate as if he hadn’t in weeks and his spare body looked as if the tea and biscuits passed right through him like air. He remembered how he used to eat and still did at times whenever his body remembered the painful feeling of his stomach digesting itself. As he made idle conversation, Harry discreetly pushed the plate of biscuits closer to his professor with the tip of one finger. Before long, the whole thing was gone, seemingly absorbed entirely by the professor’s grasping body, leaving nothing to indicate that the biscuits had ever existed.

“You and Sirius were friends with my dad, then?” Harry asked. That pained expression appeared again across Lupin’s face, but he smiled and answered anyway.

“Yes, we formed a little group. It was me, your dad, Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew.” The conversation stayed on the subject of Harry’s father and his friends and Lupin told Harry about their nicknames. As the professor spoke, Harry unconsciously looked deeper into his magical energy signatures and noticed something strange about the way the strands were bound to him. The deeper he looked, the more it looked like a strand of magic, sickly and red, worked its way throughout Lupin’s core. Harry couldn’t make out what it was.

_ It is a curse,  _ the floaters whispered into his ear,  _ the curse of the wolf.  _

A wolf? A werewolf? Harry should have guessed that they were real. He’d read ahead in the defense book, of course, but it never quite hit him that they were real. 

“What did your nicknames mean?” Harry asked, trying to tease something out of Lupin. He could tell that Lupin was holding things back from him and he had to know more. Lupin stalled by taking another sip of his cold tea and grimaced at the taste. He cleared his throat.

“Well, you know boys pick frivolous nicknames. They were just funny things we used to call each other.” He buttoned up again. Sensing that he wasn’t getting anything else from him, Harry tried a different question.

“Was my dad really close to Sirius?” Lupin’s smile slipped a little more, but he pulled the corners of his mouth up like a pair of bootstraps and spoke.

“They were like brothers. Your dad’s family took Sirius in after he was disowned by his family. Sirius would have died for James.” He paused, rubbing his dry hands together in thought. “I didn’t even get to talk to either of them in the end.”

“You didn’t?” Harry was genuinely surprised. Lupin shook his head.

“I was deemed somewhat of a...security risk when your parents went into hiding,” because he was a werewolf, Harry thought, “and when everything happened, no one thought to tell me anything. I didn’t even know Sirius had done it until I saw the papers.”

“Did he have a trial?” Harry asked Lupin gently after a brief pause. Lupin’s brows drew together.

“He must have,” he said, almost to himself, as if it had never occurred to him. An awkward silence grew between them before Harry called for Dobby and the little elf appeared with a plate of endless sandwiches for the both of them, which Lupin tucked into happily like a starving competitive eater. Harry took a few and sat contemplating his professor with a sad expression on his face, happy for the silence that the activity of eating provided.


	18. The Broken Boy Ch. 18

Harry lay awake again, this time owing to his conversation with Lupin. Did Sirius ever have a trial? He couldn’t help but feel that he was missing too many details about his godfather’s crimes. A roiling pit of anger still lay coiled in his belly, but he was less certain that it was justified. The only people who could have possibly known about the fidelius charm were his parents, Sirius, Pettigrew, and...Dumbledore. But what about Peter Pettigrew? Where did this mysterious fourth friend go? Harry whacked himself in the face with his blankets in a futile attempt at trying to get himself to sleep. Of course, he pored over all of the newspapers from back then in the library’s records that afternoon just before dinner and found nothing on Peter except for a line that spoke of a severed finger belonging to the man. It didn’t make sense. The writing, as detailed and explicit as articles were today, painted a gory scene full of stray body parts. It was obscene, really, almost too bloody. Why leave just a finger when all of the other bodies were left entirely at the scene, even if they were in bits and pieces? Why was Peter even with so many muggles?

Harry slapped himself again, trying anything to get his brain to stop firing like a gun fight in an old muggle western, anything to sleep. Another firm slap and Harry gave up trying to sleep and got up. He decided against his better judgment to slip quietly out of the common room, swinging the sleeping Fat Lady’s portrait quite silently with the help of his wand and a clever charm or two. Under his invisibility cloak, no one could know that he’d gone out. He headed for the clock tower because he liked the way the gears sounded as the clock ticked away, but stopped as a shadowy figure ran headlong into him. Harry reacted quickly and managed to stay on his feet while the stranger fell backwards, staring dazedly up at the empty space where Harry stood.

“James?” the man asked in a shaky voice, face half obscured by his hair. He smelled terrible. Before he could say anything else, Harry stunned him and disillusioned the body. Levitating the man behind him, Harry hastened to the clock tower and found the largest bell sitting there where Filch had left it for repairs the week before. Since he was a squib, he had to ask Snape for help and the professor hadn’t had time to replace it since. Harry carefully levitated the large bell and crept under it with his prize. Inside, he straightened and cast a battery of privacy charms and a free floating  _ lumos  _ to get a better look at the strange man. The picture in the Prophet made him look much angrier than real life, but there was no denying that the man sprawled before him was Sirius Black. Harry cast a silent  _ ennervate  _ and had to immediately cast a restraining curse to pin Sirius to the walls of the bell as the man pounced at him. 

“Are you stupid?” Harry asked him, remaining unseen. “Why would you come into the castle? I don’t know who you’re after, or why you escaped from Azkaban, but you really must have lost your mind in prison if you were stupid enough to come here. I did you a favor. If you’d gone any farther, someone would have seen you.”

“Who are you?” The man asked, fighting against Harry’s restraints. “Why do you have James’s cloak?” Harry pulled the cloak off slowly, stepping into the light to look up into his face. Sirius gaped at him and then started sobbing.

“It’s you,” he sobbed, “It’s really you.” Harry’s brow furrowed.

“You know me?” 

“Of course I do. You’re Harry, aren’t you? You-you have your mother’s eyes.” Harry’s eyes hardened.

“Don’t talk about my mother.” His voice was cold, sharp enough to cut through a man’s heart. Harry produced his glass orb and broke it apart into tiny shards, sharp like needles, almost invisible to the eye, but all too tangible on the skin. They flew at Sirius’s face, forcing the man to press his head against the wall of the bell, afraid to move against the sharp needles pricking every pore on his face.

“I could kill you now, if I wanted to, but fortunately for you, I’ve got questions. Unfortunately for me, it’s the middle of the night and if I don’t make it back to bed, I’ll be missed. Now hold still.” Sirius made a curious whimper, but did not move. Harry looked into Sirius’s soul and tied a strand of his own magic to it, a kind of tracking spell no one but himself could see. It might have hurt for Sirius, but Harry couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“I will say this once and you will listen,” Harry said when he was done. “You’re going to leave the castle the way you came. Keep out of sight, but stay near Hogsmeade and I will find you during the next Hogsmeade visit and you will answer my questions. Are we clear?” Sirius started to protest, but Harry forced the glass deeper into his skin, drawing blood in some places. He reformed the glass into larger, sharper needles ringing around the man’s neck. The process produced heat and the points of the rapidly cooling molten glass needles burned his skin. Despite the pain, Sirius barked out a few garbled words.

“The rat!” he hissed, “I need the rat. Your friend’s rat, the one missing a toe.” 

“What do you want with Scabbers?” A rat? Harry didn’t expect this at all. 

“He’s an animagus, Harry. He’s Peter Pettigrew, the man who really betrayed your parents.”  _ He speaks the truth,  _ Legion said in his mind, almost amused. Again, Harry believed Legion to be a good judge of character. The clock tower’s minute hand groaned above him and Harry was acutely aware of the hour, knowing that he would be missed if he didn’t head back soon. He huffed with frustration.

“I’ll deal with him,” Harry spat, releasing his restraints and reforming the glass orb. “For now, you need to leave. Go before someone spots you.” Sirius looked like he wanted to protest, but nodded obediently, keeping his hands in the air in surrender. In a show of power, Harry lifted a hand and effortlessly levitated the towering bell clear away from their heads and motioned for Sirius to leave. He obeyed, looking warily over his shoulder at Harry before sprinting out from under the heavy bell. Once they were clear, Harry donned his cloak again and left Sirius in the dark wondering where he’d gone. Harry watched him go, only mildly surprised to see him turn into a dog whose furry paws brushed quietly against the hard floors. 

“Padfoot, eh?” Harry whispered to himself. “I need to learn that one.”

 

As he dragged his bedding into the Great Hall, Harry bitterly regretted not killing Sirius when he had the chance. In his haste to leave the castle, Sirius had managed to wake up several portraits as he tried to jimmy a door open. The whole castle woke up in an uproar just minutes after Harry had finally clawed his way back to bed. Harry found a secluded corner and lay down pointedly to the side, avoiding every eye trained on him. Many, he was sure, blamed him for the breach in the castle’s security. 

“Hey Potter,” Draco hissed, shuffling over to Harry’s corner.

“What?” Harry mumbled back darkly.

“Scoot over,” he replied, already shoving Harry over with his bony elbows. Draco stacked their pillows side by side and they slept with their backs against each other, Draco shooting down every look that came Harry’s way with a glower of his own. Though Draco’s body heat at his back comforted him, Harry still shivered and failed to fight the impulse to wrap his arms tightly around himself. If Draco noticed it, he didn’t say a word. 

  
  


“How did he get into the castle?” Ron asked over breakfast the next day. Harry shrugged and grunted noncommittally, pretending to avoid the subject, eyes fixed on Ron’s rat. He could see now the subtly concealed threads of magic. Scabbers had an entire  _ magical core  _ and Harry hadn’t noticed the entire time he’d known Ron. Harry scowled and tossed his toast back onto the plate, too angry at himself to eat.

“Oh no you don’t, Potter,” Hermione said, levitating the toast up to his face. “Ron, stop talking about Sirius. You’re ruining everyone’s appetites. Harry reluctantly went back to nibbling on the rest of his breakfast, trying his damndest not to reach across the table and crush the rat between his fingers.

_ We must confess that we did not anticipate this,  _ Legion grumbled, almost as surly as Harry felt.  _ The rat possesses a core that is barely a core at all, perhaps because of prolonged time spent in the animagus form. The soul chooses the form, after all.  _ Harry scoffed into his tea and almost scalded his own nose. Hermione patted his back and stuck her tongue out petulantly at Ron, who sneered and scooted farther away from her. 

“Are you two  _ still  _ fighting?” Harry set his tea down and rubbed his scar.

“Harry, are you alright?” Hermione asked, grabbing Harry’s arm to get a better view of his face. Ron scooted back over to them, his concern for Harry overpowering his irritation with Hermione.

“It’s just a headache. I didn’t sleep well last night  _ on the floor. _ ” It wasn’t a very good lie. He had a migraine, probably because he intentionally did not fall asleep so that he wouldn’t wake up screaming from his dreams in front of the entire school. The searing pain in his scar, however, was a different story entirely. As Ron and Hermione bickered, Harry could feel pain lancing through his forehead to the point that he could feel the outline of his scar.

“I’m going to lie down before our first class. Don’t worry, I’m just tired.” Harry waved off his friends, abandoned his breakfast, and made his way up to the common room. When he made it to the grand staircase, however, a wave of nausea hit him and he had to try hard to keep himself from being sick in the middle of the throng of students heading to breakfast. Loosening his tie, Harry dashed through the closest door and ran as far as he could before the pain and the nausea brought him to his knees. He threw up what little he’d eaten for breakfast and pressed his forehead to the floor, letting the blessed coolness of the stone sooth the feverish skin. He heard the soft whisper of smooth bottomed shoes scraping against the floor. Whoever it was hesitated a moment before running to where Harry was hunched over. The sick was magicked away and Harry felt himself being wrapped up in a cloak and picked up gently. 

“You’re burning up,” Snape hissed, bundling Harry up tighter in his cloak and rubbing his arms down to ease the shivering. Harry heard a door slam shut and Snape deposited Harry in an armchair, reaching to touch his forehead. Harry yelped and flinched away from the contact. 

“Your scar. It’s bleeding.” Snape moved away to fetch more potions and Harry tried to open his eyes, to banish the glaring pain obscuring his vision. Hazy images flashed before his eyes and Snape’s office was replaced by darkness. Harry was overcome by rage that wasn’t his own and he thrashed, only to be jolted back into reality as his body hit the floor. A hand touched his shoulder and he struck out with his fists instinctively. His first blow missed, but the second made contact with a jaw. Snape grunted and caught Harry’s fists in his on hand.

“Harry, calm down. You’re safe.” Harry blinked and immediately relaxed in Snape’s grip, breathing heavily, trying not to be sick again. He slumped back against the armchair and closed his eyes. Snape applied a wet cloth to his forehead with gentle pressure and pressed the lip of a potion bottle to Harry’s lips. Harry drank obediently and was relieved to find that the combination of pain reliever and fever reducer was working. 

“Was it him?” Snape asked warily, helping Harry back into the chair. He pulled up a stool and continued his ministrations on Harry’s scar. 

“It was,” Harry sighed, feeling embarrassed. 

“What did you see?”

“Nothing, just-” Harry shook his head. 

“Where did you learn to punch like that?” Snape asked, rubbing his jaw. Harry laughed weakly.

“Lupin and his crazy bootcamp.” Harry’s chuckle caught in his throat as the darkness flashed through his vision again. Snape saw him wince and rolled up his sleeve to show Harry his own mark, which burned an angry red against his own skin.

“I should have known yours was affecting you worse,” he said, moving to cover it again. Harry stopped him and traced the burning mark with his fingers.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to get rid of it?” Harry looked steadily in Snape’s eyes. 

“Thank you for thinking of me, Harry,” Snape sighed, “But as I told you after you did that for Lucius, I need to keep it.”

“Because you’re a spy?” Harry couldn’t believe it, but he was getting irritated with Snape’s petulance. He would have removed it anyway if he didn’t think Snape would hate him for doing it. 

“No, because it’s the best way I can protect you, Harry. He’s still alive and this mark is the only way I can stay close to him to make sure he won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not worried about myself, Professor. I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt, if the mark’s hurting you now.” Snape shook his head.

“Your life is more important right now, Harry.” Snape gently pried Harry’s fingers away from his sleeve and rolled it back down. He sent all of Harry’s teachers an owl, waited for him to eat a full meal, and sent him back to bed.

“I will sick the Granger girl on you and if I find out from her that you didn’t make it to bed, I will sick Draco on you to take you shopping every day over the holidays,” Snape clipped as he left for his first potions class of the day. Harry didn’t complain and scuttled up to the Gryffindor common room. When he got there, however, Harry was surprised to find Scabbers sitting in his cage.

“Hey there,” Harry said, poking a finger through the bars of the cage, “did Ron come back and leave you here?” An idea sprouted in Harry’s mind. As quick as he could and out of sight, Harry transfigured a sock into a rat, a husk of a thing that would look and act like a rat until Harry ended the spell. It was another one of Legion’s tricks. He hid the husk behind his back and approached the cage, reaching out one hand to stun Scabbers before switching him out with the fake rat. Harry transfigured Scabbers into a button and shoved him in his pocket as he retreated to his own bed, drawing the bed hangings with a sweep of his arm.

 

“Did you want to see me, Professor?” Harry asked as he stepped through the doorway of McGonagall’s office. As usual, the office smelt of tea and old parchment and he found McGonagall in an armchair in front of the fire. 

“Yes, Mr Potter,” she said, gesturing to the armchair opposite hers. “I heard from Severus that you were ill,” she continued as Harry sat and she levitated a teapot from its hook over the fire.

“Yes, it must have been stress. I’m feeling much better now.” McGonagall eyed him for a few seconds and he fidgeted under her gaze.

“I called you here, Mr. Potter, hoping you would talk to me. You’ve probably figured out by now that Sirius Black is after you. At the risk of sounding like a horrid muggle psycho-something or another, how does that make you feel?” When Harry didn’t answer, she sighed and said, “It must make you feel  _ something.  _ I know you’re not afraid of him. You let me know as much when I refused to take you to Hogsmeade.” When Harry still did not speak, she continued.

“How about a trade?” Harry’s eyes snapped to hers and his eyebrows furrowed together.

“Ah, interest at last,” she said, the corners of her mouth flicking up in amusement. “I know you’re always looking for something to learn. I’m the world’s foremost expert on transfiguration. I must have something you want to learn.”

“I want to be an animagus,” Harry said after a long while. It was a good chance. McGonagall arched one eyebrow and threw up both hands.

“I see you’ve been thinking about this for a while, Mr. Potter. Very well. You’re a third year and you’re the best in my class. I don’t see why not.” She pointed her wand in the general direction of her desk and a small box floated over to them. From the box, she produced a single leaf, which she handed to Harry.

“That is a mandrake leaf. Hold it to your tongue with a sticking charm for a whole month. I suggest putting it under your tongue.” Harry obeyed and grimaced at the bitterness, but didn’t complain.

“The second thing you need to do is allow me some access to your mind. It’s nothing so intrusive as a  _ legilimens,  _ but I do have to help you along your way to discovering what your form is. Otherwise, there’s no telling what you could do to yourself.” Harry nodded, certain that his mental barriers would hold. 

“Excellent,” she said, rising from her seat. The professor transfigured a very nice carpet over the cold stone floor and gestured for Harry to follow. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You’ve never seen an old woman sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor?” Harry’s confused expression deepened and the professor grinned, looking extremely pleased. It wasn’t often she could get Harry to break his stoicism in front of her. Her lesson, as it turned out, was a deep meditative session not unlike those he had with Tom. She had him sit cross-legged on the ground with his hands on his knees.

“Close your eyes, Mr. Potter, and focus on the things weighing on your mind,” McGonagall said, placing the fingertips of her index fingers to Harry’s temples. A gentle probe approached his barriers, only enough to see his immediate thoughts and nowhere near enough to tap any memories further. He thought of the usual things, Lupin’s homework, his lessons with Snape, his duelling with Flitwick, Ron’s spat with Hermione, and the trouble with poor Buckbeak. Inevitably, however, his mind wandered despite his best efforts, to Sirius. He managed to keep their meeting out of his thoughts, but he couldn’t help but wonder how a man who claimed to be his parents’ best friend could betray them.

“I know you don’t know much about your parents, Harry,” McGonagall said gently, the lilt of her accent echoing through his mind, “but I believe their friendship with Sirius was genuine. Your father’s parents even took him in. War, however, changes people. Regardless of what others say, what do you make of Sirius, Harry?” 

“I think I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know enough to think anything about him,” Harry said, the picture of Sirius from  _ The Daily Prophet  _ roving around his mind.

“Really?” McGonagall said, sounding surprised. “You’re not at all angry?”

“No,” Harry sighed after a moment’s pause. “I was. I wanted to kill him at first, but then I started really thinking about it and realized that I knew next to nothing about this man and neither did anybody else, really. If the newspapers could lie about that night, then they could have lied about Sirius, too.”

“Why would you think the newspapers lied?”

“All of them say that I stopped Vold-He-who-must-not-be-named, when really I was only a baby who did absolutely nothing to save myself that night. It was my parents-” A lump in his throat stopped him from saying the rest of the sentence.

“Your parents?” McGonagall said gently. She waited patiently as Harry gathered himself and forced the tears to retreat.

“My parents. It was really my parents whose sacrifice saved me and the newspapers made me out to be some hero.”

“You think that your reputation and the fame the newspapers forced upon you overshadowed the tragedy of their deaths.”

“Yes,” Harry bit out.

“There’s more you’re not telling me, Harry. I can see it here in your thoughts.” 

Another moment’s pause and Harry rasped, “I didn’t know about any of it. I didn’t know that my parents sacrificed themselves for me until Hagrid came to get me that evening. I’d always, always known that they were dead, but I didn’t know they died for me, that they were  _ murdered  _ for me. I spent my whole life thinking they died in a car crash, when really they died for me and then everyone tells me I’m a hero and nobody even cared that they died for me.”

“You feel guilty, then,” McGonagall said in his mind, still sage-like and calm, “and you’re afraid that you might make the same mistake in assuming that Sirius is guilty. You think it’s your fault that your parents died and that his betrayal was also your fault. If your parents didn’t need to protect you, they wouldn’t have died and Sirius wouldn’t have needed to betray them.” Harry didn’t respond to that, but his thoughts mutinously agreed with everything she said.

“If by your reasoning, however, you were completely powerless to do anything the night your parents died, then you also had no power over their actions or anyone else’s. If Sirius really was a death eater, he would have still betrayed your parents. If not, they still would have died during the war and a great many people would have, too, had it not ended when it did. You could not control anything your parents did and you could not have stopped the dark lord from hurting them.” Harry knew she was right, and the logical part of his brain knew that she was right even before she spoke, but his guilt still gnawed at his stomach.

“Since you didn’t know the circumstances behind your parents’ deaths,” she continued, “finding out now feels like they died all over again. This guilt that you’re feeling over not knowing, not honoring their sacrifices, is really part of the grief that you never had the chance to resolve before the wizarding world thrust its opinions upon you.” She hit a chord with Harry that time and realized that he never did get the chance to really bury his parents. The morbid thought came to him that he wanted to join his parents in death more often than he thought about relinquishing them and their memory to the afterlife. He was more guilty that he should think about living when someone else had died in his place. It was selfish.

“No, Harry,” McGonagall said, still calm, “your parents chose willingly to give their lives for you and you could have done nothing to stop them. It is more selfish to throw away the life they gave you.” Again, he could not deny that she was right. McGonagall retreated from his mind and Harry woke slowly, feeling somewhat more free. McGonagall sat patiently in front of him, hands folded neatly in her lap, a smug expression on her face.

“You’ve done very well, Mr. Potter. What did you feel when I left your mind?” 

“Like I was...flying?” She nodded sagely, the corners of her mouth crinkling upwards.

“It’s still too early to tell, but your form could be an animal that can either fly or run swiftly and lightly. It’s really very good progress. We will do more during our next lesson in let’s say two days.”

“What about my end of the deal?”

“Why Mr. Potter,” she said, arching an eyebrow, “you’ve already fulfilled it.” When he realized he’d been had again, Harry’s face turned beet red and he scrambled back to his feet to leave. 

“Wait a minute, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said, rising to her feet. “Take a biscuit and some tea with you. Severus would be ever so cross if I didn’t make you eat something.” 

“Thanks, Professor,” Harry muttered, finally escaping her office, biscuit and tea in hand.

 

Harry emerged from Honeydukes with a profoundly agonized expression on his face, which was carefully hidden behind a well woven glamour and a wall of notice me not charms. To the world, he was a girl younger than eleven with long blonde hair and it was the furthest he could get from his true appearance, such was the extent of his paranoia. His expression, however, didn’t belong on the face of a girl that young.

“I should have known the twins had something like this,” he muttered to himself. When Harry tried to sneak out of Hogwarts earlier that day in an admittedly half-baked attempt with his invisibility cloak, the twins had tackled him, shoved him in a bag, and taken him to an empty classroom. There, they produced a crazy looking map imbued with a confusing jumble of ingenious, but crude threads of magic. Harry tried giving back the map, thinking it was far too valuable, only to have the twins shrug and say that they haven’t needed the map in quite some time. He already thought they possessed superhuman talents in the art of pranking, but knowing they reached a level of mastery that surpassed even a need for the map made him fearful of knowing what else they had up their sleeves.

Putting his conflicted feelings of fear and amusement aside, Harry reached for the magic that tethered him to Sirius and followed the thread to a small cave on the outskirts of town occupied by a pack of wolves and one familiar black dog. Harry released his glamour and approached the den, entirely unconcerned with the wolves, who seemed to know who they were dealing with and respectfully exited the den as if to give him some privacy with Sirius. It was quite a large den, consisting mostly of an overhanging rock, under which a large hole deep enough for a man to stand in was dug by many generations of wolves. Sirius regained his human form and approached Harry, apprehensively watching the wolves leave. After his conversation with McGonagall, Harry sighed and decided he couldn’t work with this man if he was dirty, disheveled, and scared of him. Wandlessly, Harry conjured a table, chairs, and a tea set before him. He pointed a finger at Sirius and in a few short spells, the man was clean, shaven, and dressed in a brand new set of robes. Finally, he carved out a fireplace in the walls of the cave where a roaring fire blazed to life whose smoke seemed to disappear as it hit the air. When the work was done, Harry sat down and motioned for Sirius to follow. He threw a leg over his knee and tossed the button/rat onto the table.

“Eat first, please,” he sighed, pushing a plate of sandwiches closer to the starving man before him. No amount of magic could fill the gauntness of Sirius’s cheeks. “You’re no use to me starving. It’s not poisoned.” 

“Don’t you hate me? Why are you doing this for me?” Sirius asked, picking up the food cautiously in one hand, keeping his eyes on the small, but threatening figure before him.

“I don’t hate you,” Harry said, crossing his arms. “If I seemed angry the last time we met, it was because I was in a bad mood and what you did was kind of stupid.” 

“It kind of was, wasn’t it,” Sirius mumbled. “You don’t believe the newspapers-”

“The newspapers are full of lies,” Harry snapped, “I didn’t know you existed until a few months ago and no fish wrap that’s done me so many wrongs is going to tell me what to think.”

Sirius laughed, a raspy, unused sound that seemed to break his barely held together face. “That’s very Brechtian of you.”

“What does that mean?” Harry knew, of course, who Bertolt Brecht was because of all the reading he did, but he wasn’t about to let Sirius know that. 

“Oh he’s a muggle thinker. He thought that people shouldn’t believe everything that things like the newspapers and theater wanted them to believe and that people should form their own opinions from the media they consume. I read some of his stuff while the war was going on and it gave me a lot to think about, helped me cope.” The ghost of a smile reappeared on his face and he went back to eating. Harry stared down the man before him, mulling over his opinions of him, trying hard to shake his anger so that he could be objective.

“You are very powerful,” Sirius said, rattling Harry out of his reverie. “How on Earth did you do all those things-all this?”

“I, uh, had to learn fast because of the, you know, dark lord thing.” Harry paused for a second, frustratedly raking a hand through his hair, and said, “I’m sure you read up on me when you got out. I did a lot of accidental magic, I guess, to protect myself.”

If Sirius had read the papers and learned of Harry’s rescue from the Dursleys, he didn't show it. Instead, he chewed thoughtfully for a little while, swallowed, and said, “You know that nervous tick you have with the hair? You got that from your mother. It’s how we could tell she was bothered.”

“I had no idea,” Harry said. He let Sirius eat and when he was finally finished, Harry picked up the button that was sitting innocuously on the table.

“Say I believe you when you say that Peter Pettigrew betrayed my parents,” Harry said,  flipping the button around his knuckles idly, “what were you planning on doing once you got ahold of him?”

“I don’t really know, to be honest,” Sirius laughed. “I know that sounds stupid, but after this many years, all I really wanted to do was kill him.”

“That is stupid,” Harry said, catching the button in his fist. 

“I know, but I was a dead man anyway. I’m going to get caught eventually. All of magical Britain is looking for me. Everyone I care about is dead or hates me. The last thing I wanted to do before I died was kill that bastard.”

“If I’m going to help you,” Harry started, “you’re going to have to change that attitude. We’re going to do this the right way. We’re going to clear your name.”

“Harry, I don’t want you to worry about this. I just wanted to kill Peter and go back to prison, or die, or whatever. I never wanted to bring you into any of this.”

“Too late,” Harry said, smirking. “You’re my godfather. You’re the closest thing I have to the family that I lost and you could be useful. I’m not letting your shit attitude stop me from saving your arse. Look.” Harry transfigured Peter the button back into Peter the rat and again into Peter the person. Sirius sat rigid in his chair, mouth open in amazement and the frozen, terrified form floating in the air before him, as if suspended in water. Legion’s latest lessons were on keeping a person’s body and soul in stasis, as if pressing the pause button on a life. He couldn’t do it too long before the soul inevitably began to leave the body, but people could stay this way for a few months. It was something like being frozen in carbon from Star Wars, only real and much cooler, not that any pureblood wizard would know what Star Wars was.

“We have this and the fact that you were never given a trial.”

“That’s all true, but how are we going to get around the Ministry? It’s the ministry’s fault I never got a trial.”

“No, think,” Harry said, crossing his arms. “Who sent you to prison? Whose testimony was it that the Ministry took to heart to decide your guilt?”

“Dumbledore’s, but he can’t-” 

“Yes, Dumbledore,” Harry said, cutting him off. “Think about it. If you had a trial, you wouldn’t have been taken to prison. I wouldn’t have been stuck in that hell hole of a place. I know you were supposed to take care of me when my parents died, but you couldn’t because Dumbledore put me in my relatives’ care without telling anybody.”

“That does make some sense,” Sirius said, cradling his head in his hands.

“What?”

“I-I tried to take you away from Godric’s Hollow after the attack. I was the first person there and the first thing I did was pick you up and try to take you somewhere safe, but Hagrid showed up and told me Dumbledore was taking you to your aunt’s house and I was so distraught, I-” He looked at Harry for a horrified moment. “It’s my fault you-” 

“No,” Harry said, voice icy calm. “It was Dumbledore.”

“But why would he do this to me? To you?”

“The same reason why he put me with the Dursleys. To ruin me. He didn’t care who he took down to do it.” Harry still didn’t understand why Dumbledore did all this to him, but every word out of Sirius’s mouth further confirmed that it was Dumbledore’s doing from the beginning.

“In any case,” Harry said, changing Peter back into a button, voice all business once again, “I’ll let you think about everything I’ve told you. If you’re genuinely interested in clearing your name, send me an owl.” Harry left Sirius with a bag of supplies and some money, as well as a very good glamor.

“You’re really good at this whole escaping the law thing,” Sirius said as if it were a dismayed observation.

“I have very good role models,” Harry said, thinking about the Weasley twins and the map. 

“Oh no, it’s the Potter genes at work. You had me worried you were all your mother with none of your father, but I see his mischief survived in you.” Sirius paused and smiled down at his hands, trembling just a little bit.

“You know,” he said, looking up at Harry at last, “if we get out of this alive, you might make a good marauder.” Harry smirked and left him under cover of his glamor and dared to think that they might be able to pull this off after all. 


	19. The Broken Boy Ch. 19

19.

 

“Professor Lupin is ill,” Professor Snape clipped, scribbling the next assignment on the chalkboard, “and he asked me to substitute for the day.” Despite every rumor that circulated the castle about Professor Snape pining away for the position of Defense teacher, Harry was surprised to find him looking awkward, decidedly out of place without the dark mustiness of the dungeons and the clinical neatness of a potions lab. 

“Since Professor Lupin just ended a section in the book, I see no reason to start a new one without him since his absence will be quite short. Today,” he said pointing his wand at the board, “you’ll be learning about dementors.” As he said the words, the syllabus on the board transformed itself into a detailed drawing of a dementor, complete with diagrams and annotations. Harry’d seen the same drawings before, but feigned surprise for Snape’s sake. 

“Sir,” Hermione said, raising her hand, “dementors aren’t covered until at least sixth year.”

“True, miss Granger,” Snape responded, rolling his eyes, “but given the unusual presence of dementors on school grounds, I thought you all would want to know how to protect yourselves against their effects. Before you say another word, Granger, while the dementors here are on watch by the ministry, dementors are still very dangerous and dark magical creatures. They cannot be tamed.”

“Why are they dangerous, sir?” Neville asked.

“They revive bad memories, make you feel as if you’ll never be happy again, and feed on the memories of those who live through trauma. In short encounters, the effects are temporary. With constant exposure, even the strongest people go mad and lose the ability to think, not to mention using magic. This is why they are so effective as bodyguards. The ultimate danger, however, is the way that they kill. The dementor’s kiss steals the victim’s soul, an injury that kills indefinitely.” The class sat rigidly, staring at Snape with petrified looks of horror until Harry coughed conspicuously.

“Right, well, there are a few things you can do to protect yourselves.” Snape began drawing the correct wand movements for the patronus charm and rattling off things that commonly ward off dementor effects. Nobody managed the patronus, of course, but the lesson made the students feel better about their chances. Later that same day, Draco left for the ministry with his father to testify at Buckbeak’s hearing. 

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay while I’m gone?” Draco asked Harry apprehensively.

“Of course, it’s only quidditch,” Harry replied. “Besides, Buckbeak’s life is at stake. Solicitor Lawson has a plan, right?” Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t  _ all  _ her idea. You’ll see. You’ll love it.”

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t totally legal.”

“Everything’s legal if you can get away with it.”

The days leading up to the quidditch game against Hufflepuff were bitter cold and Oliver made his training regimen ever more strenuous, partly due to his witnessing one of Harry’s lessons with Lupin out in the forbidden forest. Harry was working on dodging various spells and projectiles blindfolded, using his hearing to listen for the telltale whistle of a curse or the flick of a wand to figure out where the threat was coming from and move out of the way. The lessons became progressively more rigorous and Lupin eventually taught him various spins and flips he could use to dodge. The moves were surprisingly animalistic, often involving a hunched defensive posture and Harry even found himself on all fours for a few stances. Oliver stumbled upon one such session randomly and narrowly avoided Harry’s fist when Oliver stepped on a twig spying on them from behind a tree. 

“Bloody hell, Harry,” Oliver said, staring warily at the fist Harry’d planted firmly into the wood mere inches from his face. A knuckle-shaped crater appeared under Harry’s magically shielded hands. “You're teaching the team how to do that,” he said, eyes taking on that manic sheen he’d adopted recently. Lupin, being every inch a Gryffindor, eagerly agreed. Despite the team’s grumblings, the training appeared to have paid off in the first few minutes of the game. The rain obscuring most of the Hufflepuff team’s vision could do little to muffle the sound of an approaching bludger or the crack of a beater’s bat. None of the Hufflepuff beaters had any luck hitting any of the Gryffindor chasers and Gryffindor led all throughout the first half of the game. Harry found the snitch fairly easily again, but held back to give his team some time to show off. A chill running down Harry’s spine brought his attention to the sky above him, however, and his stomach sank when he saw the horde of dementors, with waves of eerie souls coursing behind them, surging towards the quidditch pitch. The crowd below, too engrossed in the game, could not see the dementors flitting through the storm clouds.

Harry immediately sped to catch the snitch, hoping again to end the game and avoid disaster by catching it. It was the shortest chase given by any seeker who ever played at Hogwarts, but the cheer of victory died as soon as it started when Harry released the snitch and instead angled his broom upward. A confused Cedric Diggory tried to follow and made it within sight of the dementors before Harry, bellowing for Cedric to turn back, pulled out his wand and cast a gust of wind at him, forcing his broom to turn the other way. As Harry flew into the rain to face the oncoming sea of black cloaks obscuring the sky like a swarm of locusts, Harry’s heart fluttered anxiously with fear that he angrily quashed. The scream from his dreams echoed inside his head and the lightning around him seemed to turn green. Wiping away angry tears, Harry resolutely faced the thing that haunted his dreams. The largest dementor seized Harry painfully by the neck and for a moment, the cloudy sky turned into the scene from his dreams. Harry could see the face of a beautiful woman with fiery red hair, his mother, and the tears streaking her cheeks. Harry jolted back to reality and realized that he’d lost his grip on his broom and was slowly suffocating in the dementor’s clutches. Grief coursing through him, Harry pulled his wand from its holster, aimed it at the dementor’s face, and muttered, “ _ expecto patronum.”  _ A brilliant white light, harsher than what Harry was expecting, lit up the sky and sent the other dementors rearing back. 

“That’s right, run, you bastards,” he screamed. He took hold of the souls attached to the dementor holding him and ripped away the bonds, watching as the translucent figures disappear into the astral plane. The dementor screamed as the light of the patronus engulfed it and released him, sending Harry plummeting to the ground. Something plucked Harry from the sky a few short moments later and Harry opened his eyes to find a creature with a gray, sallow face like a mummy and closed eyes, garbed in a robe that seemed to reflect the night’s sky, holding him. It looked like a dementor, but as it gently caressed Harry’s face, he couldn’t feel the usual dread and hopelessness he associated with a dementor. In his mind’s eye, the scene of his mother’s death replayed slowly in his head, but it didn’t cause him pain. Instead, he felt an entirely foreign warmth spread throughout his body and it left him confused. As the memory came to a close, he thought heard something he hadn’t noticed before, but his senses were wrenched back into reality. Passing a bony hand over his face, the creature let him go. As Harry fell, a raspy voice echoed in his head saying, “We will meet again, deathseeker.” Dimly, Harry was aware of someone magically slowing his descent, but his eyes remained on the creature’s face until he passed out.

Harry jolted violently awake a few hours later, clawing at the air, reaching for something. Someone caught his hands and held them to ease their trembling as another pair of hands steadied his shoulders and eased him back to his pillows. A third person dabbed at his face with a damp cloth. As his breathing calmed somewhat, Snape’s hold on his hands relaxed incrementally and Harry stopped resisting Lupin’s hold on his shoulders. 

“Harry,” McGonagall said, setting aside her washcloth, “everything is alright. You’re safe now.”

“Harry, do you remember anything about the quidditch game?” Snape flicked his wand, running diagnostic spells.

“B-bloody dementors,” Harry said, clenching his fists hard to force his body to stop shaking. His fingers wouldn’t warm despite the apparent warmth of the room. “I knew they were coming after me, so I led them away from the pitch. I think one of them got me and then I cast a patronus and I fell.”

“You cast it!” Lupin said from his side, “I knew I saw-” Lupin cut himself off as Snape sent him a withering look.

“That would explain the magical exhaustion,” Snape muttered darkly. “That was stupid, Harry.”

“Oh shush, Severus, it was brave,” McGonagall said, waving a dismissive hand. “I won’t reward points for reckless behavior, but I’m proud of your selflessness, Harry.” Snape grimaced, but kept his mouth shut, mostly just relieved Harry was awake. Madame Pomfrey bustled in just in time to end the awkward moment.

“How do you feel, Harry? You must be hurting.” she asked.

“Only my neck and my head.”

“Thought so. Those are ugly bruises,” Madame Pomfrey said, peeling away Harry’s grimy quidditch uniform to reveal a ring of reddened skin around Harry’s neck. “The headache, I suspect, is a remaining side effect of the dementors. Once you get cleaned up, I can give you a salve for the bruises and some chocolate for the headache.” Harry looked down at himself and saw that he was still covered in mud and dressed in his uniform. A few short spells later, he was clean and dressed in standard hospital wing jammies. Snape and Lupin left shortly after to aid in rounding up the dementors, leaving Harry alone with McGonagall. Looking around, Harry realized he wasn’t in the regular hospital wing, but a small room that appeared to be across from Madame Pomfrey’s office equipped with a hospital bed, potions cabinet, private bathroom, and what Harry suspected to be the wizarding equivalent to a crash cart. 

“Where am I?” he wondered aloud.

“Poppy made good on that promise, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said, smirking from under her spectacles. When Harry realized what she meant, he groaned.

“Really? My own wing?”

“Oh it’s better than that, Harry. You’ve got your own bed.” Harry scrambled to the foot of the bed and found his name inscribed on a plaque in front of it. He groaned again. 

“Make sure you let her know you like it,” McGonagall continued, “Poppy’s been working ever so hard on it.”

“I’m flattered, really,” Harry said, lying back down and covering his face with his hands. A moment passed before he asked, “What happened after I fell?”

“Professor Dumbledore stopped you falling and Shacklebolt was called to investigate the matter. A team of aurors rounded up the dementors and Dumbledore is in talks with the minister now to sort out what happened.” Harry nodded and tried looking thoughtful, but McGonagall stared him down further.

“Up there in those clouds, Mr. Potter,” she said after a while, “what did you see?”

“I saw,” he began, swallowing hard, “I saw my mother. When she-I was looking at her above me and she was crying and she said-”

“Oh my word, you mean-”

“She said she loved me, professor,” he said, staring numbly ahead of him. He hadn’t heard it before, but the creature made him watch, forced him to watch.

“The green light-the last thing she said was-” McGonagall took one of his shaking hands and shushed him gently.

“Not another word, Harry.” She held his hand, deciding not to say any more. After a moment, McGonagall patted his cheek and sighed, looking older than ever.

“To think that you would remember something like that. Is that the memory you used?” 

“I kept dreaming of it, but I never remembered it. When the dementor had me by the neck, it was like I was reliving it. I didn’t hear what she said until after I cast it, but at the time, it felt right.” McGonagall nodded sagely.

“The patronus charm is a strange thing. We always teach it using very black and white terms. The happy memory required to cast it, however, is subjective. To remember something like what you remember is a rare thing.”

“It makes me happy to know what she said, but why does it work if it hurts this much to remember?” Harry asked, turning to look at her.

“It’s the purest form of grief that drives away dementors, Harry. Your grief is so sacred and so pure, that the dementors’ effects cannot make you suffer for remembering. Very few have suffered as you have and even fewer have that kind of memory.”

The next morning, Harry woke with a start and had a startled Cedric Diggory pinned to the floor with his hand on his throat and an upraised fist above his head before he was even fully awake. 

“Told you not to touch him,” the Weasley twins said, holding a drowsy Harry back and depositing him in his hospital bed. Harry blinked a few times and realized that both the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor quidditch teams stood at the foot of the bed. The Hufflepuff team bore bunches of flowers and bags of sweets.

“Morning?” Harry groaned, rubbing his still-sore neck. Cedric eyed the yellowing bruises warily. 

“We wanted to thank you for doing what you did, Harry,” Oliver said, grinning. 

“Yeah, Harry,” Cedric said from Oliver’s side, “thanks for saving my sorry arse. I thought you were still chasing the snitch.”

“It’s fine, Cedric, really.” Harry felt his cheeks reddening.

“Anyhow,” Katie Bell said, producing a package wrapped in butcher paper, “we thought you’d want to know what happened to your broom, Harry. It rolled by the whomping willow.” She unwrapped the butcher paper and produced a splintered, damp collection of wood that was once his broom. Harry touched it mournfully and sighed. It was the broom McGonagall gave him before his first game. Both teams mumbled their apologies, each member cringing at the sight of a lost broom.

“It’s nobody’s fault, really. Thanks for bringing it.”

“You can use mine. Please, it’s the least I can do,” Cedric offered.

“Oh no I couldn’t inconvenience you like that. I think I can make do on one of the school’s brooms. It shouldn’t take that long to get a new broom anyhow.” Rapid footsteps interrupted everyone’s thoughts. Draco Malfoy, still dressed in his coat and scarf, tore down the hall leading to Harry’s room.

“Harry! I heard-” Draco paused mid-sentence at the sight of 15 people staring at him. 

“Er we’ll get out of your hair now, Harry,” Oliver said, motioning for the others to leave. As the quidditch teams filed out of the room, Draco crept closer to Harry’s bed.

“You okay, mate? I heard about what happened.” Draco spotted the bruise ringing Harry’s neck and looked aghast. “Did those things do that to you? Wait until I tell father.”

“Hey, calm down. It’s just a bruise. Madame Pomfrey said I could leave today. Besides, I cast a patronus!” Draco looked unconvinced.

“I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that stupid hearing.”

“Did they let Buckbeak off the hook?”

“Well, yes. The  Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures decided they didn’t need to go through with the charges Dumbledore brought up since I wasn’t injured and I don’t care. It also helped that father bought Buckbeak.”

“He bought Buckbeak?”

“Yep. He bought him off of Hagrid. I think the panel gave up because it got too complicated.”

“How did he manage to buy Buckbeak in the middle of an investigation?”

“Well, Solicitor Lawson managed to get Hagrid to sign over Buckbeak’s papers and take Buckbeak to the manor before Dumbledore even contacted the ministry.”

“Is that legal?”

“Of course it is! We got away with it, didn’t we? Anyway, stop dodging the subject, Harry. I should have been here. You wouldn’t have ended up in here, in your own wing of the hospital wing at that. You wouldn’t have played Hufflepuff and I could have helped you.”

“It’s more likely you would have been in here with me with more than a bruise, or worse, with your soul sucked out.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Well it makes me feel better that you weren’t here to be in danger. There were so many dementors, Draco. It was nobody’s fault. I chose to take them on by myself. I even forced Cedric to turn back when he tried to help.”

“I know, Harry. I just wish you’d accept some help every now and then.”

“Well, I’m thinking about building my own broom. How would you feel about helping me with that?” Harry said, gesturing to the remains of his broom.

“Bloody Hell, what happened to your broom?” Relieved to change the subject, Harry pressed Draco for his knowledge on broom construction. 

The next evening, Harry was awake in the common room again because of his dreams, which were all the more vivid thanks to the quidditch match, and was startled to see the creature that saved him from falling floating in the window.

“Deathseeker,” it whispered in his thoughts, “we must speak.” Harry gestured for it to follow and it phased right through the glass like a ghost. Throwing on his invisibility cloak, Harry walked swiftly to the top of the astronomy tower.

“Okay, we can talk,” Harry said breathlessly. Harry sat on a crate, gathering his cloak tighter around himself. The creature remained floating in front of him, so expressionless it was unnerving.

“What?” Harry asked, suddenly self conscious.

“You are very young,” the creature said, cocking its head. Its voice was clear and neither masculine nor feminine, but high and gentle in his mind.

“Yeah, what of it?” 

“You stopped us.”

“So you really were the dementor?” The creature hung its head a little like a guilty dog.

“Yes. We apologize for hurting you.” Harry realized the creature was staring at his bruises and tugged his cloak higher up on his neck. The creature straightened and brought up its hands, both palms of its bony, black hands facing the sky.

“Are you praying?”

“Yes.” This admission was unexpected and Harry didn’t know what to make of the former dementor’s apparent spirituality.

“So if you were the dementor, why aren’t you all...scary anymore?” 

“You cured us,” the creature replied, refocusing its attention on Harry.

“Cured you? So the other dementors are sick? What are you?”

“Many centuries ago, we were the watchers of souls. When a soul committed great evil, we descended upon it and cleansed it to bring it peace.”

_The wraiths, as they were once called, came to be when the need arose. Spirits that had done great wrongs sustained exceptional damage and could not rightly return to the astral plane,_ Legion said. Harry didn’t know what any of that meant, but he could go along with it.

“The spirits speak the truth,” the creatures said, returning to its praying posture. “We were once the most damaged of spirits and became this way to prevent the loss of more souls. We were the first spirit to become like this and lead others to do the same.”

“How did you end up like the other dementors?”

“We committed a great offense to Death.”

“Death?”

“The spirit who once oversaw the physical death and held power over the spirits who did not return to the astral plane. It once bridged the gap between the astral plane and the physical plane and acted where the spirits could not intervene, but it grew selfish. When we began the cleansing, Death lost control over those damaged spirits and we were punished for the offense.”

“So he made you into dementors?”

“We must confess that we do not know how it happened. Our time as a dementor was dark and cold as if we did not have control over ourselves. We were the last to be punished and our brethren took souls indiscriminately as if maddened. They mistook grief and pain for guilt and in time we committed the same wrongs.”

“Why isn’t death still around to make you sick again?” The creature cocked its head.

_ We felt that Death had overstepped its boundaries and we intervened, though too late,  _ Legion said. _ While Death was weakened, it could not be eradicated completely because it is Death itself. We have not felt its presence since.  _

“Can’t you cure the others if you’re their leader?” Harry was trying to wrap his head around it all, but the story was still way over his head. How could he understand a feud that went on over centuries?

“It is possible, but we have naught the power over them that we once did. We will swear our loyalty to you, however, deathseeker. We sense you have the power to cure them.”

“I hardly know how to do that,” Harry said, embarrassed. “I don’t even know how I cured you. I don’t even know what to call you, for that matter.”

“We remember a name,” the creature said. “Alistair.”

“Well Alistair, I’ll try to help you, but I don’t even know where to start.”

“The spell you cast and your power over souls. They will help you. We will be loyal to you. We will follow you for doing us this great service.” Alistair turned to Harry and bowed deeply, leaving Harry even more embarrassed and suddenly unsure of what he should do with his hands. Harry scuttled quietly back to Gryffindor tower after an awkward parting, most troubled by his meeting, and almost missed the barn owl tapping at the glass. It was a hired owl from Hogsmeade and Harry didn’t have to look to know who it was from. To his surprise, it was a parcel containing a book on broom making techniques and a letter, which simply read “I’m in.” Harry smiled and hurried to send Hedwig to Solicitor Lawson.

“What are you doing, Harry?” Draco asked as Harry lugged a great piece of wood onto a table he’d conjured in the abandoned girls’ lavatory. The place was distinctly quieter without Myrtle and the sinks concealing the chamber had since been removed and the hole boarded up, though crudely. The events of the past year succeeded in keeping people away, which suited Harry’s needs just fine. 

“I’m making a broom,” he said, grinning like mad. He’d been using the school’s Cleansweeps and while they were about as reliable as work horses, Harry found them lacking in maneuverability and speed. 

“Why don’t you just buy a new one? You’ve got the money.”

“I’ve always found brooms, even my nimbus, to be too long or the wrong shape. I’m smaller than even the average seeker and I thought it would be a good idea to customize my own broom.”

“Harry, don’t speak ill of the dead,” Draco said as Harry snatched a carving knife out of his hands.

“What, the broom? Draco, please. If it makes you feel better, I gave the nimbus-”

“Rest its poor soul-” Draco looked fit to cry.

“I gave the nimbus,” Harry repeated with a chuckle, “a viking funeral. It was very nice.”

“What a way to go.” Harry shook his head and started in on hand carving the hunk of ash wood before him. 

With the help of his time turner, he spent every other free hour he had for the next few weeks carving away at the wood, all the while imbuing it with his own magic as the book instructed him to do. Harry had fiddled with the broom’s design for some time and, while researching, discovered that the bristles served as a sort of rudder, but was mostly kept there to maintain a tradition of disguising brooms as brooms, easily explained to a muggle. Instead of including the bristles, Harry decided to create a fanned shape at the end of the broom where the bristles would normally go. The curved ends of of the fan were carved into simple scrolls, with the curved ends just big enough for his feet. Harry carved wood in the Dursleys’ yard sometimes when he was much younger if they left him alone and outside for the day, so he wasn’t a complete novice, but it was difficult work that Legion helped walk him through with their collective memories. With the help of his Sight, he figured out the best shape for riding the magical currents that conventional broom makers were close to achieving, but couldn’t perfect. It was a curiously curved pattern that changed incrementally the whole length of the broom and while it took a lot of work, Harry was very proud of the end result. 

“That’s a broom?” Ron and Draco both asked at breakfast one day, Harry’s creation sitting on the table. Hermione, Ron, Neville, Draco, Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise, and both Weasley twins ogled the strange, dark piece of wood lying on the table as if it might bite them. It was about as tall as Harry was and polished to a dull shine. 

“Indeed it is, boys, and,” Harry said standing up and calling the broom to him, “it doubles as a handy staff.” It leapt into his waiting palm with a dull thwack and Draco and Ron watched with wonder as Harry spun it about easily in his hands. 

“Wicked where did you learn that?” Ron asked in aw.

“Lupin. You won’t believe the kinds of things he and my father got into while they were here. Bloody Chinese staff fighting. This won’t be very good as an actual fighting staff, of course, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

“You’re teaching me that sometime,” Draco said, wagging a finger at Harry.

“But will it fly?” Ron looked skeptical.

“Yeah it will. I’ve already cleared it with Madame Hooch. Quidditch rules don’t have anything against custom brooms and this is legal as long as it flies and doesn’t use any other form of magic than the usual flight charms.”

“Yes, but does it fly?” Ron repeated, the same skeptical, furrowed-brow expression on his face. 

“You want to try it?” Harry asked, a mischievous look on his face.

Outside,  Ron cautiously mounted Harry’s new broom and listened warily to Harry’s instructions.

“Just kick off like you normally do and put your feet where the knobs are at the end. Be careful, though, this thing has kind of a-” Harry broke off as Ron kicked a little too hard from the ground and shot into the air like a bat out of hell. “-mind of its own,” Harry finished. 

“Er, Harry,” the twins said, “you reckon he’s coming back?” Ron’s screams could still be heard as his figure grew smaller in the distance. The rest of the group looked completely dumbfounded.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” Harry whistled sharply in within minutes, the broom returned obediently, a bewildered Ron in tow. 

“That was bloody brilliant!” Ron screamed, voice still hoarse and hair still blown back. Everyone gave the broom a try and Harry was mildly relieved that nobody fell off. 

In the common room later that night, Harry set off a plan he’d been working on ever since he captured Peter Pettigrew. He waited until the boys fell asleep and crept to Scabbers’ cage. Vanishing the fake rat he’d conjured before, Harry replaced Peter the rat in his cage and planted false memories of the past few months as well as the suggestion that he wanted to kill Harry, which wasn’t very hard to do, since Peter had apparently thought about doing it ever since Ron first met him. Cutting off the spell that kept Peter immobilized, Harry crept back to bed and waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Peter Pettigrew tried to strangle Harry in his bed and Harry had him pinned to the ground within seconds. The commotion awakened everyone in Gryffindor Tower and McGonagall was summoned in her nightie, followed by a perturbed Dumbledore. 

“Good heavens, Mr. Potter. What happened?” McGonagall asked, taking in the scene before her. Peter Pettigrew lay stuck to the floor of the room, muttering nonsensical things, mostly relating to murdering Harry.

“I don’t know, professor,” Harry said, wand still pointed at Peter. “I thought Scabbers had crawled into my bed, but he turned into this man. I’ve never seen him before in my life!” Ron looked aghast and it took him a few moments to notice that Scabbers’ cage was empty. McGonagall pointed her wand at Peter and forced him into his animagus form. Before everyone in the room lay Scabbers the rat. Ron fainted. McGonagall hurried to close the room and usher the other students back to their beds. When Dumbledore arrived, Harry gave the same explanation and McGonagall turned Scabbers back into Peter Pettigrew. 

“There’s one more thing, Professors,” Harry said, trembling a bit for effect. He knelt and, narrowly avoiding Peter’s gnashing teeth, rolled up his filthy sleeve to reveal a dark mark, grossly tattooed on his fat forearm and barely visible under the grime of thirteen years.

“Get away from him, Harry,” Dumbledore said, casting his own patronus to send a message to the ministry. “That man is dangerous.”

“I don’t understand it-it’s Peter Pettigrew,” McGonagall said, horror dawning on her face.

“I thought he was killed by Sirius Black, sir,” Harry said, looking greatly confused. “If Sirius didn’t kill him and he’s a Death Eater, was Sirius framed? Was it this man who betrayed them? After all, if he was working with Voldemort, was it him?” Everyone in the room flinched at Voldemort’s name and Dumbledore looked into Harry’s rage-filled eyes. Harry didn’t have to fake the anger in his voice. He let Dumbledore read the confusion, the suspicion, and the real malice that Harry felt towards the filthy man who lay before him. Peter, as a side-effect of being kept in stasis for so long, babbled things as they spoke.

“I was the secret keeper, oh yes,” he mumbled drunkenly. “The dark lord was so pleased when I told him where they were. Yes, yes, and that stupid boy wouldn’t die. If I killed him, the dark lord would be so happy with me.” The babbling went on like this until the aurors arrived, headed by Shacklebolt, who gave Harry a sad smile and carted Pettigrew away.

“Harry, nobody knows for certain what happened that night,” Dumbledore said, placing a comforting arm around Harry’s shoulders. “However, now that we have Peter, we can question him and the truth will out. What’s important is that you were not hurt.”

It didn’t take long for news of Peter Pettigrew’s attack to spread to the Prophet, thanks in no small part to Harry’s anonymous tip, and Harry sent a copy of it to Sirius. He sent another letter to Solicitor Lawson and yet another letter to Lucius and Narcissa. Harry knew he had to tread lightly if he was going to clear Sirius’s name the right way.


	20. Chapter 20

Despite the capture of Peter Pettigrew and Harry’s anonymous tip, momentum with the Prophet stagnated and nobody seemed to be interested in speculating what the ministry would do. Admittedly, the cause was likely partly the public’s reluctance to change their minds about Sirius Black and partly Rita Skeeter’s silence on the matter. Harry supposed that in light of the legal action he took against her, the horrible woman was lying low for a while. Still, and he hated to admit it, Rita’s work was the sleazy stuff that attracted readers like flies and he needed it if he wanted public support for Sirius’s innocence. Without the proper public outcry, the ministry might not do anything at all except throw Pettigrew in Azkaban to be forgotten. Harry’s thoughts were thus occupied when he and Draco arrived at Malfoy Manor for the holidays. 

“You'll probably hate the charity ball,” Draco said, arms crossed petulantly over his chest. “It’s full of stuffy old adults who don't care a jot about the charities we’re supporting and only attend to throw their weight around.”

“I wouldn't know,” Harry said, shrugging, “I've never been to a ball.” The pair lay sprawled in the middle of Harry’s room staring up at the snow falling gently on the glass dome. 

“Get up, Potter,” Draco said, rolling to his feet.

“What for?”

“I'm teaching you how to dance, duh,” he replied, smirking. “We can't have you disgracing the Malfoy name by being a disaster on the dance floor.” 

As it turned out, Draco was an excellent dance master and by the end of it, Harry was too exhausted to even be embarrassed about dancing with him. Draco twirled his way out of Harry’s room, narrowly dodging a pillow that he chucked after him. The day of the charity ball arrived and Harry forced himself to smile politely at every dignitary and wealthy socialite that came his way. To his surprise, however, the Minister of Magic himself ambled up to him.

“Mr. Potter!” the minister greeted, extending a pudgy hand for Harry to shake. 

“Hello Prime Minister Fudge, sir. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Please call me Mr. Fudge. I’m very glad we are meeting on such a joyous occasion. I had heard that the Malfoys took you in. The rumors must be true since you’re here. How are they treating you? Quite well, I hope.”

“They are very kind, sir, just as the magical world has been very kind to me.” The minister preened in a way that made Harry want to vomit, but he smiled anyway. As the minister prattled on about how much he’s done for the wizarding public, Harry noticed a distinct burning on his right index finger. He didn’t see Rita anywhere, but things like magically binding restraining orders don’t lie. Following the thin thread of magic attached to his finger, he eventually found a bright green beetle latched onto a floating refreshments tray. As it passed by him Harry grabbed the lot, stunned the beetle, and handed the tray to the Minister, who started picking hors d'oeuvres off of it without even noticing Harry slipping away. Safely locked away in his room, Harry revived the beetle and watched with smug satisfaction as the bug turned back into Rita Skeeter. 

“You! I’ll charge you with assault, stunning me like that.” She turned and scuttled towards the door, blonde curls bouncing to the clack of her heels. Lazily, Harry moved a heavy wardrobe in front of the door and levitated another chair behind Rita, knocking her off of her feet and scooping her into her seat. He brought her to a jarring halt back in front of him, conjuring a seat for himself and a table bedecked with food. Rita, stunned into silence, took in Harry’s relaxed posture with narrowed eyes. 

“What do you want with me? I violated the restraining order. Aren’t you going to turn me in?” Harry only arched an eyebrow and lifted a teacup to his lips. Rita crossed her arms, clearly confused.

“I’m an unregistered animagus. You’ll turn me in for that, won’t you?” Harry sighed, set down his teacup, and crossed his arms, mirroring her posture. Understanding crossed Rita’s features.

“You want something from me and you know I can’t say no with all you have on me.”

“Oh no, Rita, that would be blackmail,” Harry said at last.

“You’re cheeky,” Rita said, frustratedly dropping sugar into her tea. “I almost feel bad for all the smear campaigns I was planning on running against you.”

“I brought you here to give you work,” Harry said. “You’ve heard of Peter Pettigrew’s arrest?”

“Pfft. Who hasn’t? He came back fom the dead and attacked you in your bed at school.”

“You also know he was the one who betrayed my parents?” Rita’s eyes widened incrementally. 

“That’s what some people think, but nobody wants to end the witch hunt against Sirius Black. I was thinking about writing something about it after we got a tip about it, but my editor told me to back off of you and stop taking so much heat after last summer’s fiasco. That awful Fenetre got the gig instead and blew it. Who names themselves after a window, anyway?”

“Well, what if I were to tell you that I was the one who tipped the Prophet in the first place?”

“That changes things. You want the media to dig up dirt your family history?” Harry grabbed a scroll off of the table and unrolled it. Rita watched with quiet curiosity as Harry tore his restraining order in half. 

“Call it a sign of good faith. I’ve spoken to my lawyer about it already. I want you to find out the truth about who betrayed my parents. I would have written you a letter, but then you had to crash this ball.”

“I couldn’t resist. I always crash the ball one way or another. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“I happen to live here. You’re in my room. Didn’t you notice?” Rita looked around, finally noticing the distinct lack of Slytherin green the rest of the house seemed to be smothered in. 

“They adopted you? The rumors were true, but they’re never true! I thought they would never take in a Gryffindor, let alone the boy who destroyed their master.”

“‘They’ happen to be my family, Rita. You don’t know as much as you think you do.” Rita pouted and produced a notepad and quill.

“No quick-quotes quill?”

“Heard about that, did you? Cheeky. No, I can sense you mean real business. I’ll write if that’s what you want, but you’ll have to call off that lawyer of yours and send a note to my editor. All in confidence, of course. Rita Skeeter never gives up her sources.”

“Hm, well all I can tell you for now is that Peter Pettigrew is the real Death Eater who betrayed my parents. He has a dark mark, Sirius Black doesn’t. Sirius was never given a trial and Peter’s has been pushed back into the far reaches of Ministry administrative hell with no signs of moving anywhere.”

“So if I’m to do this, I’m risking quite a lot,” Rita said, nibbling on the end of her quill. Harry could almost see her mentally sizing up the risks and benefits. 

“If you follow this far enough, you could take down some pretty big fish. Think of what setting an innocent man free could do for your reputation, Rita. Not a tabloid reporter, but a serious seeker of justice.” Harry let that sit and dangle in front of her nose for a moment.

“I’ll do it,” Rita said after a pause, snapping her notepad shut.  

“Good. Keep me updated. You’ll get that note from my lawyer soon.” As Rita got up to leave, Harry stopped her.

“What was your first animagus transformation like?” Harry tried to look only mildly interested, but Rita saw right through it.

“My dear, it was like I was never human at all.” 

  
  


Rita delivered and within the next week, her article hit the front page and made every wizarding household balk over breakfast. 

“Ministry’s Black Herring: Innocent Man Jailed Covering Ministry Mishaps?” Narcissa set down her morning tea and looked to Lucius, who took the paper from her and read quickly, eyes darting over the page.

“Harry, when you had Solicitor Lawson terminate the restraining order, did you mean to give Skeeter permission to write this?” Harry set his fork down and smiled.

“Yes, I did. I knew something was wrong with this whole thing when Peter attacked me at school, so I asked Rita to dig up some dirt on it for me. That red herring pun’s a bit of a stretch, though. I would have gone with scapegoat myself.”

“Harry, why didn’t you ask us for help?” Lucius put down his paper and Draco snatched it up, looking equally worried. 

“I didn’t want to get you in trouble. You all get enough flak about being dark wizards. I figured I would do it myself. And what if Sirius really was innocent? I was afraid-”

“Harry, you never need to be afraid to tell us anything, you understand?” Narcissa said, moving to sit next to Harry and Draco. “Sirius is my cousin and he’s my family. I cut ties with him to protect this family, but if he’s innocent, we can help him because he is still flesh and blood. Harry, are you sure?” 

“Yes. He came to me at school and told me everything. I’m sorry! I know I should have told you or a teacher, but with everybody looking for him, I didn’t know what else to do.” It was in this rapid succession of guilty confessions that lead to Lucius opening the door in the dead of night to admit Sirius the dog. 

“See? Told you he’d make it,” Harry said trotting over to pet Sirius on the head, shortly before he turned back into a man.

“How did you get here without a broom, wand, or floo powder?” Lucius pointed a wand outside and then shut the door quickly as if he was certain people from the ministry would swarm his house at any second.

“I sort of jury-rigged a portkey,” Harry said slyly. Lucius looked more exasperated by the minute. The family met with Solicitor Lawson in the sitting room, the Malfoys on one side of the room looking intently at Sirius, who sat on the other side, awkwardly fumbling with an empty cup of tea. Solicitor Lawson paced by the fire, slowly going mad with panic. Harry and Draco listened in on the conversation from behind a door frame.

“You’re lucky you pay me so well, Lucius. Anyone else would have packed up and left for a foreign country.”

“Can’t possibly be as bad as the time I was in prison for being a suspected death eater,” Lucius quipped.

“Hm, yes, especially since you  _ were  _ a death eater, darling,” Narcissa chuckled.

“Right, yeah, good times. I wish I could remember how nice that was because I was delirious for most of it.” Lawson did not look appeased.

“Um, if I may,” Sirius started, startling everyone, “I’d like to thank you for-for hearing me out. I, uh, I know I don’t deserve it after the way I treated you, especially you, cousin. I can see that you did what you had to in order to survive back then. If you hadn’t, you’d probably be dead now.”

“Please, Sirius,” Lucius said as Narcissa filled Sirius’s teacup again, “whatever our political differences were, we can all agree that the way things turned to bloodshed in the end wasn’t right. Politics should be played out on the Ministry floor, not the battlefield, and certainly not in the homes of the wizarding public. We lost so many in the war, the Blacks included. We can’t afford to be vengeful.”

“Even so, I’m so sorry I’ve put you all at risk being here. I was going to kill Pettigrew and spend the rest of my life in prison, but then Harry convinced me to give freedom a try.”

“Got to you too, did he?” Lucius asked, smirking. “He’s a special boy.” Lucius rolled up his sleeve and bared his naked forearm.

“He did that?”

“Indeed. He’s very talented for his age.” Sirius cleared his throat, clearly remembering the night Harry had him pinned to the inside of a giant bell. Satisfied that Sirius was making amends with the Malfoys, Harry turned away from the scene and sagged against the wall, breathing a sigh of relief. 

“Harry, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Draco’s eyebrows hadn’t unfurled since that morning. 

“Draco, please. I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t just you, I didn’t tell anybody about this. I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Draco buried his face in his hands and sighed.

“I know, I know. That’s the kind of thing you always say and I can’t be mad at you because it’s so damn noble. I wish you would let me help you.” Draco looked up at Harry, a hurt expression on his face that made Harry want to cry.

“I will next time. I’m sorry. It’s just-I’m not used to-”

“Yeah I know,” Draco interjected, clapping a hand to Harry’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, mate.”

“I will tell you next time, Draco. I promise.”

 

When the winter holidays came to an end, Harry returned to Hogwarts with all eyes watching him. Rita’s crusade against the ministry drew public support like wildfire and the ministry immediately launched an investigation on Sirius’s case. 

“As it turns out, the aurors in charge of Sirius’s case resigned just after he was sent to jail. They haven’t been seen since,” Hermione said, mouth quirked in a way that meant she was thinking too hard. 

“You’re sure Sirius is innocent, Harry?” Ron asked, peeling the newspaper out of Hermione’s hands. 

“Absolutely. He didn’t try to hurt me when he found me. He just wanted Scabbers.” Ron looked like he thought about it for a minute and shrugged.

“Welp, good enough for me.”

 

The very next day, McGonagall invited Harry up to her office. His lessons with McGonagall were productive and Harry got the feeling that he was very close to achieving his animagus transformation.

“I’m really very impressed with your progress, Harry,” McGonagall said. “You’ve almost made it. I’m sure you’re a bird of some sort, and quite a large one, too.” Harry’d taken the potion, completed the incantations, and even started the morphing process, but couldn’t manage the full transformation yet.

“I thought I would have done it by now,” Harry huffed. 

“Nonsense, Potter,” McGonagall said, handing him a biscuit. “If you’d managed to do it in under a year, I would have eaten my hat. Any faster and you might hurt yourself. It’s not fun being stuck in a half-transformed state.”

“Be careful, I heard hats are rich in fiber, but I'd transfigure it into something more flavorful if I were you,” Harry said, crossing his arms.

“Are you sassing your professor?” Harry winked mischievously at her and grinned. McGonagall smiled, her smile lines showing beautifully on her face. The expression slipped from her features, however.

“Harry, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Sirius Black.”

“They say he’s innocent,” Harry said, looking down at his hands.

“Do you think so?” Harry nodded his head. 

“I did some research and figured some things didn’t make sense.”

“Yes, a lot of things don’t. It makes an old woman dare to hope that the sweet boy who once sat in this office where you sit now didn’t betray his friends.”

“You’re not the only one,” he said.

“You know he’s your godfather,” McGonagall said. “If he’s really innocent, you might get the chance to live with him. He was supposed to take care of you if anything happened to your parents.” Harry sighed.

“I know, but I have a family now. I just want to know the truth and maybe save an innocent man from going back to prison.”

“I respect that, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said with a nod of approval.

“Ahem, if you believe anything in the news,” Harry began, “do you think you can let me go with the others to Hogsmeade the next time there’s a trip?”

“Oh you’ve only gone and ruined the moment,” McGonagall sighed, “but alright on the condition that either an auror or a teacher agree to go with you.” Harry beamed.

 

The atmosphere around Hogwarts was thick with anticipation and it wasn’t long before the wizarding public began demanding the removal of Albus Dumbledore. Harry also noticed an increased auror presence on school grounds, particularly wherever he went. His time-turner use made tailing him particularly difficult for the aurors and particularly amusing to him and Hermione, who joined in on making a game of keeping the aurors on edge. One auror, however, consistently managed to get caught without Harry’s help, mostly by breaking things and running headlong into him. On one such occasion, she tried following Harry to Herbology by taking a higher route and managed to trip over her own cloak and fall over a railing. Harry saw the impending disaster coming and managed to catch her just in time. Harry set her down and she poked him several times, remarking, “You’re quite strong for your size, aren’t you?”

“Dammit Tonks, you’ve done it again!” A voice cried. A tall, overly muscular man with a choppy haircut trudged up to them fuming. Tonks snapped to attention. 

“Tonks, we assigned you to Harry because you’re not too far out of school and you scored the highest on Concealment and Disguise, but you are too damn clumsy. Don’t touch the mark, trainee!” 

“Dawlish, sir!” Tonks cried, “I’m sorry! I was trying to follow, but I didn’t see the railing and-”

“You know what, sir,” Harry interrupted, much to Tonks’s surprise, “I didn’t even notice her following me. I cast this confundus jinx thing that would hit anyone trying to follow me because that other bloke you had on me, that guy with the mole on his chin, I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye and figured I’d pull a prank on him. It’s my fault. Please don’t punish her because I was being stupid.” Tonks broke attention to stare open-mouthed at Harry.

“In any case, Mr. Potter, Ms. Tonks should have known that such a jinx was in effect when she started shadowing you. Trainee, I’m going to let you go this time, but you need to pull yourself together.” Dawlish trudged away and when he was out of sight, Tonks squealed and jump-hugged Harry.

“Harry that was awesome! Thank you so much for doing that.” 

“Hey, no problem. That guy sounded like he had a stick up his ass.” Tonks looked scandalized. Harry shrugged. “What? I’m thirteen!” Tonks’s brown hair turned pink at that point and she explained that it did that when she was happy. From then on, Tonks didn’t bother trying to hide from Harry unless Dawlish was around. 

“You mean you’re Sirius’s cousin? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Harry asked her one day at lunch. He was studying alone in a courtyard and Tonks was sitting on the other side of a column that obscured her from view of the castle. 

“Nah, the magical world’s a close-marrying crowd. The ministry stopped worrying about tenuous family connections after the war. Not enough aurors to be picky, you know? We’re so shorthanded, they sent a trainee like me here to tail you. Even last year, the basilisk was an all-hands-on-deck situation and they had to bring me along even though it was my first year in training.”

“You were there?” Harry was suddenly self conscious.

“Yeah.” Tonks peeked around the pillar separating them. “Listen, I’m glad you made it out of that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“That was pretty badass, though. I couldn’t believe the size of the thing. How did you kill it anyway? The other aurors talk about it all the time. Half of them want your autograph and the other half want to take you on as their trainee.” 

“What do they think happened?”

“Well the reports say the thing managed to get He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and he bled out after he temporarily incapacitated the basilisk. Then, you ran backwards casting some pretty advanced blasting curses for your age. When it cornered you, you found Godric Gryffindor’s sword and you lost it, presumably because you were bleeding too much to keep a hold on it. Then, you managed to get a blasting curse into the basilisk’s mouth, which is pretty incredible except that, you know, you got impaled.”

“Then that’s exactly how it went,” Harry said, chuckling.

“Well that’s what the reports say, but your wand ended up like six feet away from you without any basilisk blood on it and the basilisk’s insides were liquified. The sword was also weird because it looked more like you threw it away deliberately. What’s more, some of the curses we found on the body our vets haven’t even heard of. It’s hard to tell who cast what, but most of the advanced curses were cast after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named went down.”

“Maybe I got lucky? I dunno I barely remember what happened, what with the catastrophic blood loss. What did they even do with the basilisk’s corpse, anyway?”

“Oh actually, Snape recently got ministry approval to dissect it and harvest it for potions ingredients. The ministry is overseeing the disposal of any unused hazardous material and you will naturally be getting the proceeds from the sale of the carcass since you killed it. Basilisk skin, venom, fangs, and eyes are all regulated substances and handling them must be overseen by the ministry. The department in charge was going to go through your lawyer to get you the money, but it’s going to take Snape a really long time to finish processing the body. It’s super huge, after all.” It explained where Snape went whenever Lupin took over his private lessons. Harry decided he’d pop into the chamber unannounced one day just to scare Snape and maybe help him out with the dissection. 

That same week, Tonks followed him to one of his training sessions with Lupin. Up until that point, Harry had managed to throw off every auror following him with the time turner. Lupin upgraded the training course and charged Harry with blasting through enchanted wood dummies. He would hit the long range dummies with a blasting curse off of one hand and the closer ones he would punch into smithereens with the sheer force of his shielded fists. It was tricky business and Harry had to start over every time a long range dummy got him with a curse or a short range dummy thwacked him in the ribs. 

“Oh, come on!” Harry whined as a short range dummy got him for the sixth time that day. “These things hurt!” He took off his ruined shirt to reveal a smattering of purple bruises all across his abdomen.

“So do real curses thrown by real people who want to kill you, Harry!” Lupin said, manically flicking his wand, moving more dummies around. “Besides, this is nothing compared to that week we tried duelling Flitwick without wands.” When Harry finally finished the course without getting hit, Harry’s celebratory cheer was interrupted by a spectacular crash accompanied with a colorful assortment of curses.

“Holy shit, Harry!” Tonks said, picking herself up from the pile of discarded dummies she fell into. Harry scrambled down from the obstacle course and tried his best to look decent, but it was clear his cover was blown. A few minutes later, Lupin and Harry sat Tonks down on a log and explained everything.

“You mean to tell me that you're some sort of magical genius and you can effortlessly cast wandless magic  _ and  _ you're getting trained to literally kick ass? I'm done. Just take my job. Ugh Harry, why am I even here?” Tonks’s hair was a curious shade of red. 

“You’re here because I’ve had attempts on my life every year since I got here.”

“You’re practically superhuman, Harry. This is insane you’re only thirteen.”

“It’s perfectly safe, Ms. Tonks,” Lupin said suddenly. “We watch him carefully and we pace him so we don’t do more than his body can handle.” Tonks appeared only vaguely appeased.

“Since you have such an interesting skill set,” Tonks said after her hair had calmed down to her usual pink, “I’m guessing taking down the basilisk went differently than the reports say, huh?”

“No, it went mostly how it says in the report,” Harry huffed. “I started casting any spell I could come up with at it after Voldemort managed to get its eyes. I got hit by its tail and I got thrown and cut deep, probably broke a few ribs. You know what, that’s probably how I broke my leg. I tossed my wand and started casting wandlessly because my wand was too slow. Voldemort tried having a go at me, didn’t see the basilisk coming, and bailed after he got bit. When the basilisk got up close to me, it bit my shoulder as I was casting. I had one arm stuck down its throat, so I cast  _ turbinis  _ straight through it, which is why, you know-”

“The basilisk’s insides turned into soup.”

“Yeah.” As Harry described what happened, Lupin slowly turned white, scanning Harry up and down as if the wounds would suddenly appear with each word. 

“So you cast all those crazy spells no one’s ever heard of?” Tonks was still rubbing her temples trying to get her mind wrapped around everything Harry was telling her.

“Yep.”

“So why all the secrecy?” Tonks asked, squinting at both Lupin and Harry.

“Well if everyone knew I was ‘badass,’ as you say, it would make me a bigger target.”

“Yes,” Lupin said, clearing his throat. “It’s much safer that the magical world think Harry is an average student or he might seem like a threat.” Tonks quieted again and then snapped her head around to look at Harry.

“Why did you throw away the sword? Everyone’s wondering why you threw away the sword.” Harry huffed and ran a hand through his hair. Lupin and Tonks wore matching, expectant expressions watching him

“You know how the ministry questioned Dumbledore because it was suspected that he knew all about the chamber and didn’t do anything about it? Well, I saw the sword and Fawkes and I was furious, so I threw it away.”

“So Dumbledore knew?”

“I don’t know anything, okay? Dumbledore’s just done a lot to make me suspicious of him and I was in a tight spot! I could barely hold onto it because, again, there was blood everywhere. I don’t even know how to use a sword! Well, now I do, but that’s beside the point.” By the end of the conversation, Tonks had sworn not to tell the world that Harry was a badass. When Tonks left, Lupin sighed and looked more tired than ever. 

“What?” Harry asked as he spelled himself clean.

“I read about what happened here last year, but I never imagined...” Lupin trailed off, eyes haunted.

“It’s okay. I’m sitting here, aren’t I?” 

“Nobody should go through something like that. I know you know what you’re doing. You  _ really  _ know what you’re doing. It’s just that I’m having a hard time remembering that you’re the adorable baby Lily sent me pictures of, that James’s baby had to go up against a basilisk. If they were alive, I just know they would be hurting knowing that you’ve gone through so much, that you were lying in the chamber of secrets all alone with your lifeblood pouring out of you.”

Harry swallowed thickly, remembering his conversation with McGonagall. “Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like, you know, if they were alive. I can’t really imagine it.” Lupin reached out and held Harry close. When they parted, Lupin looked at Harry with a curious expression.

“You know, your dad went through this school collecting misfits like me and Sirius. They were like the family that I never had. The day your parents got married was the happiest in all our lives and when you were born, it was like we were getting another little marauder. You were a cheeky little baby and you were always getting out of the crib, setting things on fire, and riding this cute little broom around the house.” The conversation went on like this and Harry didn’t even care that the sky was darkening. 

“Harry,” Lupin started haltingly after a while. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m a werewolf.”

“I know,” Harry said, grinning.

“You what?” Remus’s eyes popped wide open and his hair seemed to bristle.

“Yeah, I know and I don’t care one bit. I think it’s awesome.” 

“You know, your dad said the same thing when I told him.”

“Yeah, well, you’re rubbish at hiding it.”

“He said that too.” Lupin examined his shoes, still flustered.

“I think Hermione knows too,” Harry said. 

“I figured. I took one look at her on the train and knew she’d be my downfall.” They fell quiet again.

“Hey how would you feel about chaperoning me on the next Hogsmeade visit?” Harry asked suddenly. “McGonagall says I need a teacher with me. I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“You’re on, Potter.”

Harry figured out when Snape’s free hour was, whipped out his time turner, and made his way down to the chamber. While the hole had been boarded up, Harry noticed that the planks were new and were recently moved and the security charms placed around the hole were newly cast. When he reached the chamber, he could hear the distinct bubbling of a potions cauldron and the quiet scraping of a scalpel on flesh. What he didn’t expect to see, however, was Snape wrapped up in something that looked like a hazmat suit complete with goggles and face mask. He was apparently in the middle of skinning the carcass and Harry was met with the ghoulish sight of the basilisk’s head with half the skin peeled away. 

“Wicked,” Harry said, dropping his satchel to the ground. Snape dropped his tools and yelped, jumping at Harry’s voice.

“Bloody hell, Harry,” Snape said, angrily pulling the face mask away from his mouth. “What are you doing down here? This place is off limits.”

“That auror Tonks told me you were down here and I figured you could use the help.” Harry looked around the room properly for the first time and realized that Snape had lit up the room with a free floating  _ lumos.  _ It was as grimy and gaudy as he remembered, but the stark white light produced by Snape’s spell made the place seem more theatrical. 

“The aurors didn’t clean up this place very well,” Harry observed. The floor was still strewn with scraps of paper and tape marking points of interest, including where the basilisk bit Voldemort, where the sorting hat was found, and a rather morbid Harry-shaped outline where he fell complete with his own blood still caked onto the stone. Snape caught him staring at it and moved quickly to block it from view, plastic smock crunching with every step.

“Harry, you don’t have to be here,” Snape said, gently taking Harry by the shoulders with his ungloved hands. Harry smiled at him.

“Oh come one, professor. Look at the size of this thing. It’ll take you til next year to process the whole thing. Besides, I feel personally responsible for making you work too hard. I did kill it, after all.”

“Yes, and it almost killed you.” Snape stopped and thought for a moment, judging Harry’s reaction to the chamber. “You’re sure none of this bothers you?”

“No, not at all. I used to sleep on a cot covered in my own blood, remember?”

“I almost wish you were bothered. Fine, smock on, gloves on and shielded, face mask at all times. Understood?” With the help of the time turner, Harry spent his usual revisions with Snape down in the chamber, elbow deep in basilisk carcass, which had to be held together with magic because Harry had done so well in eviscerating its insides. It wasn’t long before Malfoy found out about it, however, and Snape had no choice but to allow him to join in as well.

“Don’t touch the fangs,” Snape snapped, more serious than usual. “I will handle those myself. They are very dangerous and the two of you are liable to get yourselves killed touching them.” 

“Ugh I don't know how you two have been working in here with the stink of that thing and the stink of whatever it is you're brewing over there,” Malfoy groused. 

“It’s wolfsbane potion for Lupin,” Harry said, looking up from where he was cleaning a strip of basilisk skin.

“Oh I see,” Draco said, pulling on his smock. “That must taste awful judging from the smell.”

“How on earth do you two know about Professor Lupin’s condition?” Snape asked from where he was extracting teeth.

“Pfft everyone who matters knows,” Draco huffed. “Granger, all of the Weasleys, Pansy, and Blaise all know about it. Wasn't that hard to put together since the man disappears once a month.” Snaps looked agonized even under all the protective gear.

“Nobody seems to care so far, professor,” Harry said, still scraping flesh off of the basilisk skin. “Hermione was about to make a fuss over it, but we reminded her werewolves had rights too, since Lupin’s the first decent defense teacher we’ve ever had and, you know, it’s not like he asked to be a werewolf.” Snape grumbled something about the shrieking shack and asked no one in particular why he was the only one out of the loop about these things before cursing life debts as he carried on extracting teeth. Harry and Malfoy shrugged and went back to work.

 

As March rolled around, the wizarding public demanded answers regarding Sirius Black. The ministry was pressured by a group of influential witches and wizards headed by Lucius Malfoy to release records of his arrest. The two aurors in charge of the case were found to be hiding in Bulgaria of all places and could not be extradited at the risk of starting a diplomatic incident. Barty Crouch Sr. was revealed to be the official who gave the order to imprison Black without a trial. The bit in the morning paper that made everybody raise an eyebrow, however, was that Crouch’s decision was influenced entirely by the advice of Albus Dumbledore, head of the Wizengamot. 

“Bloody Hell, Harry,” Ron said through a mouth full of toast. Harry was getting tired of hearing that phrase.

“For once, I agree, Harry,” Hermione said, the two of them having made up since Scabbers was revealed to be a fat death eater. “I didn’t know how Sirius could be innocent, but with all this, I’m more convinced.”

“Yeah,” Pansy said from Hermione’s other side, “and look. The headmaster isn’t here today. You know what that means. He’s been taken to the ministry for questioning again.” The two girls and Ron had their noses buried in that morning’s Prophet. Hermione looked up to find Harry and Draco looking quite smug and unconcerned. In the chaos of the news breaking and Dumbledore’s apparent absence, the school’s usually well defined house-lines were suddenly blurred and the students sat wherever they wanted to.

“When has Harry ever steered you wrong, Granger, really,” Draco sniffed, throwing an arm around Harry like some sort of yes-man. “He’s an excellent judge of character.” 

Oliver wood entered the Great Hall and strode briskly over to Harry, who saw him coming and rose from the table. 

“Sorry to cut this short, friends, but I have a quidditch game to warm up for and I must leave before my illustrious leader decides to carry me to the pitch over his shoulder.” Harry then hopped over the table to stay out of Oliver’s reach and made it all the way to the door before Oliver managed to catch up with him and did indeed throw Harry over his shoulder and carry him to the pitch. The game started easily enough and the day was even sunny. Next to him, the Ravenclaw seeker, a girl a year ahead of him called Cho Chang, blinked against the sunlight and smiled at him.

“It’s a nice day for a game, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah, beautiful. Much better than the last game I played.”

“That your broom?” Cho leaned on her own broom and eyed the pole Harry carried.

“Yeah, made it myself after my other broom bit the dust.” Cho winced in sympathy.

“I saw that game. Your team pulled off some amazing maneuvers. I’ve never seen anyone catch the snitch so fast. Rough luck, though, so many dementors showing up out of nowhere.” She shivered. “I hate those things.” 

Madame Hooch lead both teams out on the field and they kicked off soon after, cutting their conversation short. Harry saw the snitch right away, but as usual waited for the team to show off. The points were close this year despite their victory against Hufflepuff and the longer he waited, the more secure Oliver could feel about their victory. It was in everyone’s best interests that Oliver stayed calm, so Harry waited. Cho, however, had no qualms about going after the snitch and turned out to be a pretty vicious flyer. Harry gave chase and, while he held back, found flying against Cho was like dueling on broomsticks. His fun ended abruptly, however, when a handful of dark figures stormed the airspace above the pitch, darkening the sky despite the weather and obscuring Harry and Cho from view. 

Cho, who Harry allowed to get in front of him, saw the dementors first and screamed. The dementors surrounded the two of them and flew aggressively at the two seekers, clearly trying to seize Harry. Cho tried whacking one with the bristles of her broom and was unseated when the dementor retaliated. The crowd below gasped as Cho emerged screaming from the clouds. Harry kicked his broom into full gear and managed to catch Cho before she hit the ground. He dropped her on the pitch, out of breath and shaken, but unharmed.

“Th-thank you, Harry,” she said, collapsing onto the grass as if she wanted to hug the earth and never let go of it again. 

“Go get an auror,” Harry said, mounting his broom again.

“Where are you going?” Cho’s words were lost on him as Harry shot straight up into the air. The dementors followed him high into the sky and Harry outstripped them easily. When he was far enough from the pitch and could see the forbidden forest beneath him, he stopped, turned on them, and levelled his wand at the growing swarm of dementors that followed him.

“ _ Expecto patronum _ ,” he muttered, his mother’s last words ringing through his head. Something was different this time, however, and in the seconds before the incantation left his lips, he saw flashes of his parents’ faces smiling down at him. White light, brighter than the sunlight blinding Harry’s eyes, shot from his wand and  _ something  _ stood in front of him, a ghostly figure whose every step sent shockwaves of power coursing at the dementors. The dementors were persistent, however, and more of the dementor horde flew at the shield projected by his patronus. Harry kept up the spell as long as he could and before he exhausted himself, five aurors pulled up next to him mounted on brooms. They formed a protective circle around him and cast their own patronuses. White light radiated from their wands in more waves that managed to push the last of the dementors away.

“Harry, you still in one piece?” Tonks cried when the danger had passed.

“I’m okay!” Harry shouted back, out of breath, heart beating out of his chest. He looked around him and saw that Dawlish, Tonks, Proudfoot, another man he didn’t recognize, and Shacklebolt of all people had come to save him. 

“That was an impressive patronus, Mr. Potter,” Dawlish drawled out in his sandpaper-like voice.  

“That it was,” Shacklebolt rumbled. 

“You graduate from here, lad,” Dawlish continued, “you sign up to be an auror. We’ll whip you into shape and maybe you won’t need us here to watch your sorry arse.” The aurors cheered and laughed gamely. Tonks ruffled his hair as she passed him. They flew back to the castle in a protective formation in case more dementors showed up and landed in the quidditch pitch. Proudfoot, Tonks, and a man called Savage continued onward to track down the dementors. The crowd cheered as Harry landed and though the match ended in a draw because both seekers were unable to catch the snitch, Oliver and Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw quidditch captain, hoisted him onto their shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry spied McGonagall, Lupin, and Snape in deep conversation with Shacklebolt and Dawlish, but couldn’t make out a word they were saying. Harry put aside his curiosity and decided to just be thankful that, apart from Cho’s lost broom, nobody was hurt at the end of the game and he managed to stay out of the hospital wing.

“I must say, Harry,” Lupin said the next weekend, “you have had a rough season. What are the odds that two quidditch games in a row end with dementor attacks?” 

“If you have my luck, the odds aren’t that bad.” Lupin had agreed to be Harry’s chaperone for the latest Hogsmeade visit and Harry was enjoying his freedom. The castle was much too active since the quidditch game. Dumbledore returned to the castle awaiting a formal hearing, but the dementor attack left everyone on edge. It seemed Harry couldn’t go anywhere without a throng of students staring at him and openly speculating what would happen as a result of the ministry’s trials. Two camps emerged within the school, one believing Sirius’s innocence, and one that didn’t care one way or another and was only concerned for their personal freedoms. Justin Finch-Fletchly lead the latter group and held the stubborn opinion that Harry’s connection to Sirius Black was putting them all in danger. During the latest Hogsmeade visit, however, Harry could think of nothing but the little cave he’d led Lupin to on the outskirts of town. 

“Harry,” Lupin muttered after some time, “Where exactly are we?” As soon as the question came out of his mouth, the answer appeared at the mouth of the cave. Lupin flinched instinctively to bring his wand out, but was stopped by Harry’s firm grip on his arm and the appearance of a great number of wolves sitting in a rough perimeter around the cave. Harry stared at Lupin fiercely with the steely-eyed gaze that made the wolves guarding the clearing bow their heads deferentially to him and Lupin knew that the man standing before him was no danger to them. Sirius and Lupin stared at each other unmoving as if across decades and Harry stood in between them, arms crossed. After a few minutes, he rolled his eyes and started off towards Hogsmeade.

“Just talk it out, won’t you?” the wolves parted to let him through and closed ranks once he passed. “I’ll just be at Flourish and Blotts with Ron and Hermione under my invisibility cloak. All of your angst is making my hair stand on end.” He pulled the invisibility cloak over his head and disappeared from view, but stayed long enough to see Lupin and Sirius embrace from a distance.

“Oy, Potter,” Justin spat at him at breakfast the next morning, “why don’t you go to Azkaban, since the dementors seem to like you so much. If they put you away, maybe the dementors will leave us alone.” A few other people mumbled their agreement and nobody seemed to want to step up and say anything. Harry was about to leave the Great Hall when someone slammed a plate down on the table in front of Justin.

    “How about you put a cork in it, Justin,” Cho Chang snapped, taking a fork out of his hands and slamming that on the table too. “Who do you think you are to wish Azkaban upon someone else. That place is inhumane even for dangerous criminals and you must be one sick person to want anybody to go there. You think Harry asked for this? The dementors are attracted to him because of all the shit he went through protecting the sorry arses of people like you. You cross me one more time Finch-Fletchley, and I'll string you up by your fancy small clothes at the top of the astronomy tower.” The Ravenclaw quidditch team showed up behind her and crossed their arms rather menacingly and Justin stood up to leave. The hall erupted in applause as he left and those who had supported him before were suspiciously silent. Cho winked at Harry, who was still stunned with an open mouthed smile plastered to his face. He shook himself and made his way to Cho and waved his wand up and down.

    “What are you doing?” Cho asked, bemused.

    “Oh nothing, just taking your measurements.”

    “For what?”

    “You'll see.”

    The month or so following that interaction went roughly the same way with different camps of people at a time making their negative opinions known to him and a few people defending him when they could. Harry found solace in his work with Alistair and Legion, their morning lessons having turned into an hour of experimentation. Alistair would wrangle a dementor from the horde on guard at Hogwarts and Harry would try his damndest to cure it, but nothing felt the way it did the day he cured Alistair. On further inspection, the writhing, screaming thing entrapped in Alistair’s magic was a soul that had endured damage comparable to that sustained by Voldemort’s horcruxes and was additionally tainted by what Harry was sure was some kind of unnatural madness. Whatever Harry tried would seem only to anger the dementor before him and Alistair would inevitably be forced to let it go. Harry always felt guilty each time one got away, but Alistair met each failure with a prayer and a reassurance that they would find a solution with time. 

“Deathseeker,” he’d say cryptically, “if my recovery was possible, I have faith that you will in time find a way to cure the others.”

_ This is true,  _ Legion would say as if putting a bandaid on his ego,  _ for this is a problem that has existed for many centuries. It would not be solved in a day or even a week.  _ Harry could only trust that he would find a solution soon. Turmoil in the newspapers seemed to come to a head in this time, ending with a ministry plea in the Prophet asking that Sirius Black come forward to the ministry to face a trial. Through Solicitor Lawson, Sirius penned a reply, which read,

 

“To the Ministry that falsely accused me of murder,

I must confess that while your offer is appealing and I do tire of being a wanted man, I am understandably wary of showing my face in a ministry building because there is still a bounty over my head and no assurance that I will not immediately be put to death. If we are to put an end to this, we must meet on my terms so that the injustice that I faced so many years ago is not repeated. I will agree to a meeting on protected, neutral ground and, most importantly, without the interference of the parties who landed me in Azkaban in the first place.

Signed,

Sirius Black”

It was a heavy handed note, obviously referring to Dumbledore and Barty Crouch Sr. as the two people who ultimately sent him to Azkaban. Harry thought it was exactly what he expected of a marauder and really a very good idea. It surprised him even less to find out in a letter from Solicitor Lawson that the meeting would take place at Hogwarts while Dumbledore was held for questioning at the ministry. As a sort of tradeoff, Sirius would enter Hogwarts as a dog as Dumbledore travelled to the ministry via the floo network. None of the children would know the meeting was taking place there, of course, but it didn’t take long for a few people to start whispering about the possibility of it being at Hogwarts. In the meantime, however, Harry and Hermione scrambled to complete their final exams, a particularly arduous task given that they each had extra classes and no prior experience with exams due to the incident with Voldemort their first year and the basilisk in the year after. On top of that, Harry had a quidditch final to win. Oliver had stopped looking like a starved maniac, but took on an even more alarming attitude that was like that of a Buddhist monk. 

“Be the snitch, Harry,” was his mantra, closely followed by, “but only after we’ve scored fifty points.” Thanks to their draw against Ravenclaw, the gap between them and Slytherin wasn’t as close as it was, but this didn’t stop Oliver from wanting to break a school record and take no chances. The day of the game, Cho Chang slid onto the bench next to Harry and forked a load of fruit onto Harry’s plate, a habit she’d picked up from Hermione. 

“Eat up, lad,” she said, laughing at the stricken expression on Harry’s face. “You faint before giving me a game to watch, you’ll have more than Granger to worry about for being off your eating schedule.” 

“I concede, dear lady,” Harry said, putting his hands up in mock defeat. “That reminds me. I do actually have a present for you.” Harry produced a package from under the table. 

“You did not!” Cho gasped and took the offered pole from Harry’s hands. It was made of the same wood Harry's broom was made of, but was a bit taller. Chi ripped the parcel apart and squealed in delight at the elegantly carved wood she found under the brown paper. It was carved in the same pattern as Harry’s with minor adjustments for height and had no frills, just the way Cho liked it. 

“Think of it as my gift to you for giving Justin what for,” Harry said. He accepted her hugs and squeals and he could forget for a moment about his troubles watching her speed by the Great Hall’s window just moments after. The final match against Slytherin was, thankfully, the first normal game of the season and nothing seemed to be amiss, except that Harry caught a glimpse of Sirius peeking at him from the stands with Crookshanks. He thought he was hallucinating, but was more perturbed than relieved when Crookshanks dropped a note at his feet later in the Gryffindor locker room that simply read “Meet me at 8pm in front of the whomping willow on the night of your final exam.” Gryffindor won, of course, and Oliver Wood looked like he might die from happiness and even kissed Harry on the cheek before hoisting him up on his shoulders to celebrate. Exams came and went and Harry and Hermione both collapsed in the Great Hall at dinner after their final exam. 

“I still don’t understand how you lot managed to take every single class,” Pansy said, waving a chicken leg in front of Harry’s face in an effort to rouse him from the dead with the prospect of food.

“We’ll tell you when it’s over, Pan,” Hermione growled, not even bothering to pull her hair out of her face. Harry remained blissfully asleep and Ron took the liberty of resting his plate on Harry’s head. Later that night, however, Harry stood awake and alert near the whomping willow, where he was astonished to see Crookshanks admitting a large black dog through an opening at the base of the tree. Sirius the dog bounded up to Harry and led him into the castle. At the front door, they were met by an entourage of the wizarding world’s top law enforcement, including Shacklebolt, Amelia Bones, Dawlish, and Tonks, accompanied by Lucius Malfoy, Snape, and Solicitor Lawson. Being led out of Hogwarts by a different team of aurors was the headmaster, looking decidedly aloof.

“I do hope that whatever happens, my dear boy,” the headmaster said, the aurors not daring to shush him, “I am deeply sorry for whatever mistakes this foolish old man made and that I can some day make up for the suffering you have endured.” Harry couldn’t tell if the comment was made to him or Sirius. His heart pained him again as it always did when he encountered Dumbledore and reminded him that however sincere the man might be, however good he might have been before, he could not be trusted.

_ It is for the best, young one,  _ Legion said gently.  _ Although he may have been a force for good once, never forget where he left you and never forget that he seeks to use you.  _

Harry nodded to the headmaster once and proceeded into Hogwarts with Sirius in tow. The meeting took place in an abandoned classroom on the first floor and Harry was told to wait in the courtyard with Professor Lupin, who looked as nervous as Harry felt. 

“What’ll happen if he’s acquitted?” Harry asked quietly. Lupin sighed and leaned back into the stone bench on which they sat, his bloodshot eyes still tired, but more hopeful than ever before. 

“I talked to him about it. He said that if he’s acquitted, the first thing he’s doing is taking a proper shower and moving all of his things out of his mother’s old house before demolishing it for good, and good riddance, too. Then, he wants to come live with me to make up lost time, I suppose. I could use the company since this job won’t be around for much longer if anyone finds out I’m a werewolf.” Lupin paused for a moment and looked at Harry. “He’s not alright after so many years in Azkaban, Harry. As much as he says so, he’s going to need a lot of help to go back to the way he was before and...I don’t think he’ll be able to take care of you. He’s going to wake up in the middle of the night and scream and when he takes himself back there-”

“He’ll zone out and do things that might hurt me and himself. I know,” Harry said, matching Lupin’s morose look. “I have my own Azkaban, professor. If mild versions of all of that happened to me, I can’t imagine what he’ll go through in the next few months.” Suddenly, the air around them seemed to chill and Harry got the feeling that something was wrong. A flood of dementors appeared in the night sky. Snape burst into the courtyard, wand at the ready. 

“Harry, you need to go inside,” Snape shouted, but it was too late. The dementors blocked Harry and Lupin from the castle and Lupin pushed Harry in front of him, shouting at him to run. They made a mad dash for the forbidden forest, Snape hot on their heels after punching a hole through the dementors’ ranks with his own patronus. Once they made it far away enough from the main body of dementors, Lupin and Snape turned and levelled their wands at the incoming horde. Harry wanted to help, but his concentration was waning because of the dementors’ effect on him. He mustered his strength and cast his own patronus to bolster the other two. The dementors seemed to retreat and regroup. Upon closer inspection, however, a cluster of cloaked figures crested the hill obscuring Hogwarts from view and Harry’s stomach sank. Exhausted from fighting off the dementors, the three of them were no match for the twenty or so wizards who encircled them.

“So you really are teaching children now, Severus,” the apparent leader said, tearing off his mask to reveal an ugly, pitted face beneath. It was the same man who threatened Lucius in Diagon Alley the summer before. “That’s funny, do they know you used to torture and kill people? Look at you now, you traitor.”

“You’re the real traitor, Dolohov,” Snape bit back. “You’re not a true dark lord. Look at you pretending to be Voldemort, trying so pitifully to usurp a throne that isn’t yours.” Dolohov laughed and stepped forward, wand at the ready. Just before he could throw a curse at them, however, Harry ran up to him and landed a blow to Dolohov’s chin with shielded fists before turning and doing the same to four more of their attackers before he was subdued by three more, 

“This is the young Potter brat, I assume,” he said, spitting a globule of blood into the grass. “You’ve given me enough trouble for a lifetime.” He stomped closer and backhanded Harry across the face. The full moon rose above Dolohov’s head and he cast a long shadow over Harry as he fell to the grass.

“Don’t you dare lay another hand on him!” Lupin cried, lunging forward despite the Death Eaters restraining him. Dolohov laughed and hit him again, rings on his fingers leaving welts on Harry’s cheek. Lupin growled and lurched forward, ripping at his attackers’ arms. Snape’s eyes widened. “Remus, did you take your potion today? You fools! Let him go!” The two Death Eaters released Lupin’s arms and watched with horror as the meek man before them grew three feet and transformed into a monster. Dolohov turned his attention away from Harry and Snape took this opening to grab Harry by the arm and run in the direction of the forbidden forest. Dolohov gave the order to give chase, but his voice was drowned out by Remus’s howls and the sickening sound of claws ripping into human flesh. Snape took no chances, however, and kept Harry running until they reached the darkness of the forest. They hid behind a particularly large tree and Snape disillusioned them both. 

Backs pressed against the deeply pitted wood of the tree, they held their breaths as Death Eaters tramped through the forest. They were greatly reduced in number, and most of them were running in a blind panic, but Harry could still smell Dolohov’s acrid breath and the unmistakable scent of dog and blood. Heavier footsteps sounded nearby and Snape stiffened. He bent down to Harry’s ear and said, “ _ Run _ ,” before bolting out from behind the tree, luring Lupin away from him. Harry didn’t wait to find out what became of him and bolted out the other direction and made it almost out of the forest before he was hit from behind with a stunner. Dolohov chuckled and dragged Harry to his feet. 

“That was a good try, whelp,” he said, spittle landing on Harry’s cheek. Harry slammed his head down onto Doholov’s nose, breaking it, and kicked his legs out from under him. Four other Death Eaters rallied behind Dolohov and engaged Harry in a rapid casting showdown. Harry did his best to get close enough to his assailants to incapacitate them physically and at first, it worked. Most wizards were rubbish at close-range combat and Harry managed to take down two, even after he lost his wand to an expelliarmus half-way through the fight. Harry was still exhausted, however, and Dolohov eventually managed to restrain him with more ropes and a half-complete full-body bind. 

“You’re like a slippery eel, you are,” Dolohov said, blood dripping from his nose. “I wasn’t going to use this on you because I’m a reasonable man, but I’m afraid that last bit of resistance has earned you an equally harsh punishment.” Harry didn’t know what he meant, but scrambled to get away when the Death Eaters released him. 

“Boy!” a voice called, a familiar voice which made his blood run cold. “You’re going to regret what your lot did to me!” Harry turned back to see Vernon Dursley coming his way, tied up and being escorted by two Death Eaters. The man was disheveled, hair overgrown and unkempt, and his eyes were red and maddened by months of incarceration. Harry didn’t know what came over him, but his knees buckled and his body trembled involuntarily. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. 

“I think it best that we leave them for a pleasant family reunion, don’t you?” the Death Eaters cut Vernon loose and disappeared into the forest. Vernon lunged at Harry and landed a blow to the same cheek that Dolohov had struck earlier. This time, the blow drew blood and Harry’s head struck a tree. Still bound and affected by the full-body bind, Harry could do little to resist Vernon’s attacks. His time in the muggle prison seemed to have worsened his violent tendencies and he was even prison-buff. Harry made a run for it, but one of his legs was numb from the body bind and he suspected it might be broken. Vernon grabbed Harry roughly by the arms and landed more blows to Harry’s stomach. Desperately, Harry cast a wandless cutting curse at his bindings, cutting his own hands deeply due to the lack of precision. The ropes came loose and he started fighting back, shielding his face from more hits with his forearms. Vernon’s exercise in the prison-yard, however, gave him the advantage and Harry was down again, the life slowly being squeezed out of him as Vernon wrapped his hands around his throat. Suddenly, Vernon’s hands were gone and as he gasped for breath, Harry could make out a large dog pulling at Vernon’s clothes. 

“Sirius!” he choked, crawling toward them. Sirius transformed back into a human and stunned Vernon with what Harry realized was his wand. Rushing to Harry’s side, Sirius checked Harry for injuries and disparaged at his condition. 

“Harry I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have come-”

“Sirius, what happened to your hearing? What are you doing here?”

“I was acquitted! But-I-as soon as I heard what was happening outside, I couldn’t sit there and wait for news. I came out here to find you. The others are busy keeping the castle locked down and nobody was doing anything about finding you.”

“What were you thinking? You could die out here and you’ve only just been freed!”

“Harry, I don’t give a damn if I’m free or not as long as you’re safe.” Their conversation was cut short as the air around them chilled. Harry stood and started limping farther into the forest again.

“Run, Sirius! It’s dementors!” Sirius picked up Harry and ran into the forest, stopping when they came upon the Great Lake and could go no further. The dementors descended on them and Sirius shielded Harry from them with his body. They swept down in swarms and took turns drawing Sirius’s soul out of his body. With the Sight, Harry could see his soul gradually coming away from the living plane and felt a keen sense of hopelessness wash over him as Sirius was brought to his knees in front of him. Alistair appeared in the fray and Harry pleaded with him to save Sirius and he obeyed, hovering near Sirius like a watchdog. The dementors turned their attention to Harry and took turns taking his soul too, leaching his strength. In his mind’s eye, however, Harry could see his mother’s face again in the last moments before her death and when faced with the prospect of seeing the same expression on Sirius’s face, felt an intense feeling ignite in his chest. He grabbed his wand which Sirius had dropped when they stopped running and bellowed “ _ expecto patronum _ ” at the oncoming horde. The light was harsh again and left the tip of his wand in lashing waves like the crack of a whip. It seemed to work and Sirius slumped forward onto the gravelly shores of the lake. 

Harry rushed to examine Sirius and found his soul barely hanging on and he worked hastily to re-establish the bonds the dementors had ripped away. Just as his work was almost complete, a pair of hands ripped him away from Sirius and threw him roughly onto the gravel. It was Vernon again and this time it seemed no one would be able to save him. As Vernon strangled him, Harry thought of the possibility of dying this time. Above him, the dementors returned, hovering over them in circles like vultures waiting for a dying animal to succumb. His mother’s face appeared again, except this time, she seemed to smile playfully at him the way Legion would as if to say, “no dear, not this time,” and suddenly, Harry wanted to live again. 

The desire was intense and he desperately wished to live, to be anywhere else but in Vernon’s grasp. His body tingled as waves of magic pulsed, changing him until he was suddenly flying above Vernon, attacking him viciously with talons he realized were his own. He screamed with unbridled rage and didn’t care that rivulets of blood poured from Vernon’s wounds. Harry forced Vernon into the dark, cold waters of the Black Lake and struck him with his talons until he lay bleeding and gasping, half of his body in the water. Just as he was about to make the finishing blow, Sirius, who’d woken as Harry was being attacked, shielded Vernon with his own arm. 

“Harry, I know you’re angry, and I know you’re scared,” he said, grimacing at Harry’s sharp claws digging into his arm, “but I need you to focus on me and turn back into a human. Your animagus transformation is complete, but you’re unstable and if you don’t turn back now, you may be stuck like this forever. Focus, Harry.” Harry was jarred out of his reverie by Sirius’s voice and he looked down at his claws piercing Sirius’s skin. He released his hold on him and focused hard on becoming human again. It worked and Harry looked down at himself, relieved to see his body again. Sirius moved to embrace him, but was stopped by the dementors, who battered Sirius until he was unconscious. Harry pulled out his wand hastily and started casting his patronus, but halted as his mother’s face flashed through his mind as it did before. 

Harry pointed his wand calmly above him and a white figure burst forth, emanating waves of white, powerful light as it leapt into the night sky. What he realized was a stag took heavy, confident steps forward, pulsing light erupting from its hooves. Each dementor was frozen where it floated, shrieking in pain, unable to pull itself away from the patronus. Harry reached out with his magic and ripped away the bonds holding the dementors’ souls captive. Before his eyes, each dementor threw its head back and turned into a creature like Alistair. When the last of them were free of their curse, the malignancy that affected them swirled like a black cloud above the lake and made attempts at corrupting the newly cured wraiths. Harry contained the malignant cloud in a cage of his own magic and used his power as a necromancer to imprison the thing in his own body. As his patronus faded, Harry collapsed, suddenly feeling the effects of the partially completed dementor’s kiss. He was cold and felt disconnected from the rest of his body, his brain feeling full of cotton wool.

“Deathseeker,” Alistair said, gathering the wraiths around him like a solemn congregation, “you are not well.”

“I’ve killed someone,” Harry said, gesturing weakly to his uncle.

“He is not yet dead, but his soul is indeed damaged beyond repair.” Harry could see it. He could not before, but after training for so long with Legion, he could see Vernon’s soul suffering and he pitied it despite the cruelty his uncle inflicted upon him. 

“Will you take him?”

“Of course,” Alistair said. The wraiths took their places around Vernon and took his soul, a shining speck of a soul which they prayed around until it underwent a change that Harry realized was the birth of another wraith. In the end, his uncle lay lifeless of on the ground, dead without a soul to support the body. Above him Alistair maintained his prayer posture and was joined by the rest of the innumerable wraiths, including the one that used to be the soul of his uncle. 

“Are you praying for him?” Harry asked. 

“No, Deathseeker,” they all seemed to say, “this prayer is for you.” He felt their gentle touch on his soul as the scene of his mother’s death continued to play in his mind over and over again until he lost consciousness

 

Severus Snape ran after Shacklebolt and Savage in the direction of the bright white beacon that lit up the night’s sky. He had only just escaped a near brush with death subduing the transformed Lupin by forcing wolfsbane potion down his throat with the help of two aurors. When they finally came within sight of the clearing, he saw that the patronus that was powerful enough to drive away hundreds of dementors had receded into a wand being held by a familiar figure standing in the middle of a group of creatures, the likes of which he had never seen before. The figure slumped to the ground and the creatures stood by for a while before flying away. Fear gripping his heart, Snape hastily ran to the body on the ground. 

“Harry! Don’t you dare die here. Don’t you dare.” Harry wasn’t moving, though his eyes were open. Snape bent close to his nose and could hear no signs of breathing aside from a feeble gasp or two. He began performing chest compressions, ignoring the sharp gravel digging into his knees. It was a very muggle procedure, but one that he resorted to when he was desperate. The aurors took turns performing the chest compressions while Snape tried desperately to figure out what was wrong with him. Physical injury aside, Harry was cold to the touch and unresponsive. Snape spelled pepperup potion into Harry’s stomach and it seemed to help, but not by much. At length, one of the creatures came back and Snape and the aurors backed away from Harry, giving the thing a wide berth. Snape watched warily as the creature placed a hand on Harry’s chest. His body glowed for an instant and Harry gasped, convulsing weakly. The creature bowed its head and flew away, leaving Snape and the aurors stunned and confused. When Snape returned to Harry, he found him much improved and made the decision to move him to the hospital wing. 

 

The next morning, Snape woke groggily in a hospital wing bed.  In the next bed over lay Sirius Black, unconscious and being worked on by a mediwizard dressed in a St. Mungo’s uniform. On the ground in the middle of the room lay several prone body-shaped forms with white sheets draped over their faces. The source of commotion came from the room at the end of the hall, which he knew to be Harry’s private wing. Despite his own injuries, Snape clambered out of bed and limped down the hall.

“Smethwyk, what else can we do for him?” a voice which sounded like McGonagall asked, quivering. 

“We can heal his injuries, but something must be done about his mind. He’s in some sort of magical coma brought on by the attempted dementor’s kiss. Getting attacked by Death Eaters, a werewolf, his uncle, and dementors all in one night must have been severely traumatic, not to mention a premature animagus transformation. It’s a miracle he’s alive.” Snape made it to the open door and peered in, surprising McGonagall, who moved to ease him into a chair.

“Severus,” she said, “you must rest-”

“Did the aurors figure out what happened?” Snape asked, his voice coming out hoarse.

“The Death Eaters freed Vernon Dursley from his muggle prison,” Amelia Bones said, from Smethwyk’s side. “The aurors arrived when you all had already disappeared into the forbidden forest. They managed to find you and help you take down the werewolf, but we couldn’t find any trace of Harry until he cast a bloody patronus beacon into the sky. When you found him, his patronus had faded and he was unconscious and his uncle was dead. We don’t know for sure who killed the uncle, but the claw marks on his body suggest a werewolf, though it will be hard to confirm. If it was the professor, he will have to be put on trial for the murder of a muggle and at least two Death Eaters, though he may not be charged for killing the Death Eaters.” 

Snape could barely hear Amelia speaking. Distantly, worry over Remus niggled at the back of his mind, but he could not tear his eyes or his thoughts away from the sight before him. Harry lay in the hospital wing bed with bandages covering him from his torso up to his neck. His eyelids were purple and swollen along with the side of his face where Dolohov had struck him and where he’d landed on the rocky forest floor. Endless yards of linen bandaged his hands and the leg that he’d broken resisting the Death Eaters. Outwardly, he appeared to be asleep, but his unnaturally slow breathing and an utter lack of movement gave Harry a corpse-like appearance that unnerved him.

The next few hours were chaos as Lupin’s trial and Sirius’s acquittal took place concurrently on a very public stage. The evidence against Lupin was stacked high and there were periods during the events of that night that his movements could not be accounted for, giving him little to no evidence to prove the claw marks on Vernon Dursley’s body were not made by him. With Sirius’s weakened testimony because he was unconscious at the time of Vernon’s death and Harry in a magical coma, it was all Solicitor Lawson could do to demand a fair trial. At Hogwarts, students woke in the cold, gray morning to the news of what happened the night before and the magical world seemed to still. The school had been under lockdown the night of the attack and Ron, Hermione, and Draco were all awakened with the sudden realization that Harry was alone in the thick of the attack. Harry’s friends each made their way into his room to sit in silent vigil, quietly watching the adults deliberate on what to do to help Harry. Shacklebolt and a few aurors stayed behind to guard Harry in the hospital wing.

“I'm telling you, performing a legilimens on his mind in that state is a sure fire way to make him go mad if he hasn't already,” Snape said, hands gripped rigidly together.

“The longer we wait, the worse this is going to get, Severus. You know this as well as I do. Someone he trusts needs to be there to heal his mind. I can't because my mind is compromised from Azkaban, but you- Severus he loves you like his father. He'll trust you to bring him back.” Snape rubbed his face warily, palms scraping against the beard he'd started growing since the attack. 

“Severus,” Healer Smethwyck interrupted, “I've done all the work I can repairing Harry’s body, but there isn't much I can do about his mind. Mr. Black is correct in that Harry's condition will worsen if you wait. Professor McGonagall has been working with him on the animagus transformation and is familiar with Harry's mind. If the two of you perform a legilimens under supervision, there is a greater chance of Harry coming out of this.” 

“I’ll do it,” McGonagall said, taking a seat on Harry’s bed. She looked expectantly to Snape.

“Alright, let us begin.” The next few minutes passed quickly as both professors cast  _ Legillimens  _ and ventured into Harry’s mind. Snape and McGonagall found themselves in a grey version of the hospital wing that they had just left, absent of all other people, that was surprisingly cold, with an almost deafening silence. They swept the room looking for Harry, but could find no sign of him in his elaborate and detailed mindscape. The silence was interrupted suddenly by a rasping voice echoing through the air.  _ The astronomy tower,  _ it said. They bolted to the astronomy tower, astounded that Harry could perfectly reproduce the entirety of Hogwarts in his mind. At the top of the stairs, they found Harry sitting at the edge of the ramparts, head leant up against the stone.

“Harry, what are you doing up here?” Snape asked, looking warily at how close Harry was sitting to the edge. Harry turned around, swinging his legs around to the other side.

“I might ask you the same question, Professors,” he said, smiling. “No one’s ever been here before.

“Harry, are you alright?” McGonagall asked, fighting the urge to cry over hearing him speak again. 

“I am and I’m not,” Harry said. “There’s something wrong, but the me in here is still intact, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t gone mad.” 

“What’s wrong?” Snape asked this time, “We’re here to help.” Harry pouted, but stood and waved a hand. Their surroundings changed and they found themselves in front of a cottage with a wooden gate that swung outward inviting them in.

“It’s in there. I don’t remember this place, but I do and whenever I go in there, I forget what it was that I saw. I mean, I know what it is, but it scares me.” Harry led the way in, the doors swinging open to admit him. Snape’s gut made a turn and he thought he might vomit. He’d been here once, but he never imagined that Harry would remember this. McGonagall pressed a hand into his forearm comfortingly and he forced his body to lurch forward after Harry. Inside, a ruined house lay frozen in time. At the foot of the stairs, the body of James Potter lay sprawled on the carpet, glasses lying crookedly on his face, the face which was the spitting image of Harry’s. Harry seemed only slightly bothered, avoiding touching the body as he ascended the stairs. McGonagall gasped and covered her mouth, but continued up the stairs. Muffled voices could be heard as they reached the landing.

“Move, girl. I’m not here for you,” a voice hissed. 

“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!”

“This is my last warning!” The last of Lily’s cries faded as a green light filled the room, the infant Harry’s cries the only sound remaining in the room, and then the scene changed, rewinding as if on a muggle machine. The same, gut wrenching scene replayed again and again, with Harry watching incomprehensibly and unmoving. Snape’s composure was shaken as the woman he loved died in front of him again and again. Remembering that he’d buried Lily long ago, he shook himself and knelt before Harry, whose face was stricken and confused.

“Harry, look at me. Your parents loved you. Your mother loved you. None of what happened to you on this night was your fault, only the result of your parents’ love for you.”

“But she’s dead because of me,” Harry said, shaking. “You heard her. She said to take her instead. If I’d just died that night, she might still be alive.”

“Harry,” McGonagall joined in, kneeling by Snape, “remember what we discussed? You had no control over what happened here. You were a baby and nothing the dementors made you remember can change what happened here. Let this scene play out and see the result of your mother’s love. Her life might have ended here, but yours did not and every second that you still live is an extension of your mother’s memory. Stay alive to remember her and to honor her sacrifice.” 

The room stilled at the moment Lily died and Harry stared at her dead body, looking tormented, but determined. Slowly, the scene continued with Voldemort levelling his wand at the infant Harry. A bright white light, too bright for everyone in the room, blocked Voldemort’s curse and sent it flying back at him. Harry saw with his Sight that the light was his mother’s soul who embraced him before fading into the part of the astral plane he could not reach, into peace with Legion and the souls housed there. All at once he understood what Alistair meant to show him, what he’d been resisting. Lily was with Legion.  _ As she is and has always been. We are one and she has been with us all along just as you are even as you breathe.  _ Legion repeated. The building pulsed and the three of them were in a white expanse, no longer a gray, washed out imitation of the real world, but an unknowable white plane that was warm and pulsed with power. 

“Harry-” Snape began. 

“I’m alright now, professor, or I will be.” A series of doors appeared around them, some of them McGonagall and Snape had been through, each containing memories. One door, however, seemed older and seemed to be the epicenter of the power pulsating through the space. Snape felt drawn to it and took a step towards it, but Harry waved again and the door slammed shut, locking itself tightly. 

“Not that one, Professor. Not yet.” Snape and McGonagall looked to him owlishly and before either of them knew, they were back in the hospital wing with Smethwyck and the other children shouting their names. Both of them were soaked in sweat and McGonagall’s nose bled. Snape looked down to find that Harry had latched onto his cloak with one hand, piercing green eyes open and alert.

“I’m sorry,” Harry rasped, panting with the effort of moving. “If you’d stayed in my mind any longer, you might have died.”

“Right you are, Mr. Potter,” Smethwyck said easing Snape and McGonagall into chairs and administering potions. “You were in there nearly two hours. It was a near thing. No Harry, don’t try to move!” 

Harry was sitting up with great difficulty because of his injuries. He winced and clutched at his abdomen where Vernon had landed the most blows. 

“I have to get to the ministry. Lupin-”

“That’s right, his trial is taking place right now.” Snape said as he heaved himself out of his seat and scooped Harry into his arms.

“Shacklebolt, take us to the ministry.”

“Is that wise? Mr. Potter’s condition-”

“I can do it,” Harry hissed, breathing hard. “Let’s go. There’s no time to waste.” Shacklebolt threw a handful of floo powder into the fire and Harry braced himself as they were transported in a whirlwind to the Ministry of Magic. Shacklebolt led the way and Snape followed, flanked by Tonks and Dawlish with Smethwyck on their heels. The commotion of their arrival cleared the way between the central hall and the courtroom and people seemed to stare at Harry with curious eyes that made Harry prickle with discomfort. They burst through the doors of the hearing in the middle of Sirius’s testimony.

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t Lupin. There were dementors swarming the place. How would you know if the cause of death wasn’t the dementor’s kiss?” Sirius bellowed, Solicitor Lawson frantically trying to get him to stop talking.

“His body was so torn up, Mr. Black,” an unpleasant looking woman said with a sickly sweet smile, “investigators could not make out which came first. What you are telling us, however, simply makes no sense. How could-” Her retort was cut short by Shacklebolt opening the courtroom doors. Solicitor Lawson spoke quickly, and soon, Harry was in a chair sitting before the Wizengamot. 

“Mr. Potter,” Amelia Bones said from her seat at the head of the council, “I am surprised to see you awake. When I last saw you, you were in a magical coma. Can you physically sit through this trial?”

“I can,” Harry said, confidently and clearly. A few members of the Wizengamot mumbled their surprise at the state of him and others shifted in their seats, impressed by the defiance in his voice.”

“Alright then, Mr. Potter. Let us begin this interview. Sirius Black claims that you attacked Vernon Dursley in self defence. Can you provide evidence that this was the case? Aurors have confirmed that the Death Eater Dolohov did indeed break Mr. Dursley out of prison, but there is little to suggest that he attacked you.”

“I do, Madam Bones.” Harry stood and unbuttoned his hospital wing pajama shirt, exposing the bandages beneath. He unwrapped the bandages around his throat, revealing an ugly black bruise that wrapped around his neck and the distinct shape of Vernon Dursley’s fingertips. Around the room, people gasped in shock and muttered to each other.

“If you compare these bruises to my uncle’s hands and pictures of other injuries he’s inflicted upon me in the past that are in my medical file, you will find that they are the same.” Smethwyck produced Harry’s file and another auror snapped a picture of Harry’s neck. A mediwizard consultant examined Harry’s injury alongside his file and nodded his confirmation to the Wizengamot. The court was again alight with conversation and Madam Bones had to call everyone to order.  

“Thank you, Mr. Potter. The second point of issue is that Mr. Black claims the marks on Vernon Dursley were caused by you in your animagus form and not Professor Lupin. You are unregistered and there are no witnesses besides Sirius Black who have seen this animagus form and very few animagi are large enough to produce marks like these.” She waved her wand and a projection of one of Vernon’s injuries appeared in the air for the audience to see.

“The only way to prove Mr. Black’s claims,” she continued, “would be for you to demonstrate your transformation in front of the Wizengamot and make similar marks for comparison.”

Solicitor Lawson stood, and said, “You cannot expect him to transform so soon after-”

“I can do it,” Harry said for the second time. Amelia Bones nodded and gestured for him to proceed, conjuring a dummy made of cloth and wool before him. Harry stood and found his transformation much easier the second time around, though his injuries made the change painful. The court was silent as Harry grew into a large gray bird, whose wingspan was easily larger than a full-grown man and whose talons left long, ragged tears in the mannequin that resembled the floating picture of Vernon’s injuries perfectly. Harry’s form bore a white lightning bolt shape on its forehead, just above its two emerald green eyes. He stayed in his animagus form as long as he could before he had to revert to his human form, gasping from the exertion and clutching the arms of his chair. “It was me who made those marks. I was about to die and my survival instincts led me to complete my first transformation. Sirius calmed me down until I could reverse the transformation, but the dementors attacked him. They took my uncle’s soul and turned to attack me, so I cast a patronus that made them all retreat. That’s the last thing I remember.”

“Thank you, Mr. Potter,” Madam Bones said,surprise marking her face in equal measure to the rest of the room. 

“A patronus? A third year casting a patronus?” A high, squeaky voice emanated from the woman from before. “I don’t believe it. He’s making it up to protect his professor.” The Wizengamot seemed to explode with conversation, half of which was in support of Harry and half of which seemed to side with the unpleasant woman.

Harry stood, produced his wand, and muttered the incantation, holding onto the memory of his mother’s soul finding peace. A hush spread over the court as they watched his movements. A white stag shot from his wand and leapt around the courtroom, pulsing with blinding power. The stag reared up on the unpleasant woman, who shrieked and ducked for cover as the patronus passed harmlessly through her. Harry cut off the spell, too exhausted to continue. He wavered and stumble, causing everyone in the room to gasp and lurch forward in their seats as if wanting to catch the boy who suddenly seemed so small and so hurt despite his bravado. Shacklebolt caught him before he fell and as he protested, Madam Bones stood and said, “That’s enough, Mr. Potter. My fellow members of the Wizengamot, I think we can all agree that Mr. Potter’s admirable display has proven the points under contention. We shall reconvene for a vote within the next hour. Healer Smethwyck, please see to Mr. Potter’s injuries. Mr. Potter, I want you to stay in bed and do whatever your healer tells you to do until you’re healed up. Hearing adjourned!” 

Harry stayed awake only long enough to hear Madam Bones speak before passing out in Shacklebolt’s arms. When he woke next, he was in the hospital wing and his mouth felt like sandpaper. Sitting up, he was relieved to find that it didn't hurt to breathe and his leg was no longer broken.

“He's awake!” someone shouted from the door. Draco sprinted to his side followed by a throng of other people. Madame Pomfrey muscled her way into the throng, shouting “Alright, you lot! Potions first, then he can talk to you.” Harry drank his potions obediently and received an armful of his best friends, relieved to tears that he was back with them.


End file.
